Placing VMS created files to a Windows PC or Server

[Gilbert Pereira]

What would be the most effective and simplest method to place VMS created file to a Windows PC or Server. I want to be able toe use the file to update an Execl Spreadsheet using scripts.

[Hoff]

COPY /FTP it over to Mac OS X and use iWork Numbers or one of the other available tools to open and process and display the data. (You *did* say easiest.)

The usual command to push a file from OpenVMS to another box is the DCL command COPY /FTP [/BINARY]. This command has been present since V6.2 and is massively more easy to use within DCL than is the FTP utility. You can substitute DCL symbols within the COPY /FTP command, for instance.

If you need security, you'll want to look at using sftp. With or without certificates.

Windows clients requires you perform the file pull on the Windows box, as Windows is a client. There's no ftp server, so you can't push a file to a Windows box -- unless you add an ftp server. How you get Windows to best do this is not something I'm qualified to answer; on Mac or Unix or such, I'd tend to use crontab or launchd or such.

With Windows Server, you can push files to the server as the box can provide an ftp server (daemon).

Mac OS X client and Mac OS X Server and most any other Unix or Linux box provide client and server ftp capabilities.

With either Windows client or Windows Server, you can use CIFS / Samba (or the older Advanced Server or oldest PATHWORKS Server) on the OpenVMS host, and can use one of the available tools to copy a file directly into the share from OpenVMS. The Windows box can then access the data.

The most transportable and interchangable low-level file format is the Stream-LF (Stream Linefeed), which means the original file can and often should be converted this format or can be created in this format.

Avoid the CSV family of file formats; they're among the biggest format stupidities ever implemented. Yes, they're common and they look easy. But they turn increasingly more difficult to deal with as you need escape characters. If you have to deal with CSV, look at libcsv; there's a port of that for OpenVMS around.

You can also use a web server on OpenVMS, and can use XML or (ugh) CSV and the Windows box can then import or pull or save the data for local access.

Poke around given the above search terms, as there are various previous discussions of transferring files from OpenVMS to Windows. The T4 performance tools for OpenVMS, for instance, go through this basic file transfer sequence. And there are other environments were migrating or porting the data to Windows have been discussed.

Stephen Hoffman
HoffmanLabs LLC

[Willem Grooters]

As usual: it depends on what you want to do with those files.
If you require processing of these files in Excel, I would do all processing on VMS, create a properly defined .CSV file and retrieve that, by any means like Hoff suggested. The same way T4 works.
If you would want to process data from inexed or releative files, you can only get the data after converting the output into a format the PC will understand, by converting it to sequential data, fro instance, and process that as required.

But there are other means.
If you can access your data from your PC using CIFS/SAMBA/AS/PW (fior sequential files) or by tools like Attunity (for accessing ISAM or Relative files), why not leave the files on OpenVMS and access them directly?

[Hoff]

///If you can access your data from your PC using CIFS/SAMBA/AS/PW (fior sequential files) or by tools like Attunity (for accessing ISAM or Relative files), why not leave the files on OpenVMS and access them directly?///

Getting stuff into and out of a CIFS share from OpenVMS is a hassle of an order similar to the hassle of transferring the file over the network. You need address the file format (and converting it as needed), and then there's a step to make the file visible on the PC using either path.

I'd probably look to use the web server and some CGI, and (if needed) convert the file format on the fly. I'd avoid CSV given the hassle factor that format entails, and go to XML or text or such where the data permits it. The converter can be some DCL CGI code. (This CGI-based approach effectively automates the transfer step, and lets the client decide when to pull the file.)