Copyright 1994-2016 by Kevin G. Barkes All rights reserved. This article may be duplicated or redistributed provided no alterations of any kind are made to this file. This edition of DCL Dialogue is sponsored by Networking Dynamics, developers and marketers of productivity software for OpenVMS systems. Contact our website www.networkingdynamics.com to download free demos of our software and see how you will save time, money and raise productivity! Be sure to mention DCL Dialogue! DCL DIALOGUE Originally published May, 1994 Advanced Temporal Displacement in DCL By Kevin G. Barkes Sometimes I wonder if there's a conspiracy among OpenVMS users. Periodically I'll get a batch of e-mail from all over the place asking a somewhat off-the-wall question. Most recently, several folks asked if there's some way to change the way in which OpenVMS displays dates and times in directory displays. What's going on in the user community that sparked this interest? Beats me. Anyway, there is a way to alter the display, but it requires the assistance and cooperation of your system manager. It works only, I believe, with the DIRECTORY and MAIL commands in DCL, although you can build the capability into your own applications. Detailed information can be found starting on page 5-19 of the OpenVMS Programming Concepts manual. Date and time formatting is done with the runtime library routines LIB$FORMAT_DATE_TIME and LIB$CONVERT_DATE_STRING, which use logical names to determine how to display dates and times. The logicals are initialized by executing the command procedure $ @SYS$MANAGER:LIB$DT_STARTUP.COM which assigns about 400 or so names controlling both date and time display as well as language. Executing the procedure won't change anything; your system will continue to use OpenVMS' default time and date format in English. The procedure requires CMEXEC and SYSNAM privileges. If you plan on using this facility permanently, you should be certain it's included in your system startup file. Once this is done, it's just a matter of assigning the logical name LIB$DT_FORMAT. The command DIR/DATE using the defaults produces the listing in Figure 1. The commands $ define/user lib$dt_format lib$date_format_036, lib$time_format_001 $ directory/date produces the listing in Figure 2. Note the /user qualifier on the define command. It causes the logical assignment to last only for the next DCL command. Another directory command after this one would revert back to the original format shown in Figure 1. Care should be exercised in doing define/process or define/system commands with this puppy. Lots of things expect the standard VMS time and date format and changing it could break them and ruin your day. Those of you who do a lot of DCL writing can see the possibilities here. You can take the output from this re-formatted directory command, sort it by date and do lots of other things. Even better, there are 40 different predefined output date formats, and you can add your own to those specified in LIB$DT_STARTUP.COM. You can also muck around with changing your system's default language, but I'd be careful with that one. I really don't want my system to sound like a New York cab driver. - Dealing with DEC. For the past several months I've been recounting the problems I've had installing a new VAXstation and getting my maintenance contract straightened out, as well as the comments I made on Digital's annual customer survey questionnaire. Not all experiences with DEC are unpleasant; as a rule, DEC's employees are conscientious, hard-working and friendly. It's just that there are fewer of them around these days, and they must try to provide services with systems which are inefficient at best and incomprehensible at worst. Tom McGrath runs a small system in St. Paul, MN comprised of a MicroVAX 3100, 16 terminals and a half-dozen PCs in a Pathworks network. "Last summer," he retells, " I, too, received one of Digital's service survey forms. It happened to my desk the same week as my first service call for an HP LaserJet that was just added to our service contract. Digital services it through a third party, QMS. I placed the call. Twenty-four hours later Digital called back because they didn't have the serial number and the call had not been passed on to QMS. After 48 hours I got a call from Digital in Minneapolis because they didn't have the printer on their service records. Once the lady was informed that it was an HP, she knew immediately that the call should have gone to QMS, not her. After about 96 hours QMS called and scheduled the service call. For the first time ever I filled out one of the survey forms. "My survey did get a call back. It took about four months. It even confused me because it took a long while to figure out what problem I was being called about. In any case, Vieni Hart, who has serviced our Digital equipment for the whole five years that I've been around, took this very seriously. She came for a visit to find out my frustrations with Digital service. She visited a second time with her boss with a really practical guide to navigating the DEC automated attendant that causes an infrequent caller like me to cringe. "My problems with the QMS service have continued. They usually take 24 to 48 hours to call me after I place a call with Digital. Vieni has continued to check back, after I called her when a call I had insisted was an emergency was not answered within 24 hours. After I called Vieni the serviceman was there in two hours. "Last Thursday at 3:30 I called again with a new problem. Before 9:00 on Friday, Vieni was on the phone to ask if I had heard from QMS. Of course I hadn't, but she promised to check on it and the call did come withing the hour and the serviceman was on-site by noon. "I have been pleased with the response I got to my concerns on the survey. Of course, my experience has always been that Digital's service team in Minneapolis is top drawer. They have set the standard, perhaps unreasonable, by which I have judged all service relationships." Tom's experience echoes mine. DEC people are great. DEC procedures and support systems suck rocks big time. Dave Galvin, my service manager here in Pittsburgh, called me back because of some of the comments I had entered on my questionnaire. I really felt bad that Dave had to make the call, since local field service is fine, and all of my complaints dealt with Digital policy and procedures, not local DECpeople. So how are things going? Sigh. Every January my account with DSNlink gets terminated because the DEC system that manages contracts never tells the DEC system that manages DSNlink accounts that my contract was renewed. This has happened for three years straight, and 1994 was no exception. Fortunately, a quick fax to Dave and my account was restored immediately. Whatever DEC pays people like Vieni and Dave isn't enough. Their ability to rise above the incompetence of DEC's various billing, support and tracking computer systems is the only thing that keeps many of us customers. - Lost in the Neutral Zone: The main reason I haven't yet installed OpenVMS 6.0 is that I don't have DECwindows/Motif up and running. The reason I don't have Motif installed is that I can't find the proper setting to change the mouse pointer from its non-descript arrow into the shape of a starship, which I can with regly DECwindows. Here's the deal: the first person who provides the necessary info gets world fame, a couple I love DCL stickers and a rare and sporadically distributed 1994 KGB pop-up calendar. What more could you want? - DCL to C? - In response to demands from the teeming hordes, the gnomes at Channel Island Software are busy working to supplement their DCL to Fortran Precompiler with a DCL to C Precompiler (DCP). DCP will take a DCL command file and convert it into C source code which can be compiled and linked, thereby creating "compiled" DCL. Rumors from the sunny if somewhat shaky shores of Santa Barbara also indicate they have developed a way to activate images called from the source code without having to spawn a subprocess; a nifty trick indeed, and one I suggest you not try at home. The new capability will be featured in version 3.0 of their product, which should be shipping around the time you read this. Give Frank Noell a call at 805-682-3448 if you're interested, but for heavens' sake, don't tell him I told you about it or he'll never trust me with anything again. - On the horn: Thanks to Carl Reynolds, Seann Herdejurgen, Joel Gerber, Wayne "Otis" Mamed and Glenn Schmid for their comments and contributions this month. ******************* Kevin G. Barkes is an independent consultant who echoes the beliefs of that great philosopher, Emo Phillips, who once said "Some mornings it isn't worth gnawing through the leather straps." Kevin lurks on comp.os.vms and can be reached at kgbarkes@gmail.com. *************** FIGURE 1. Directory USER2:[BARKES.PROPRESS.DCL94] AUTOLOG.DAT;1 27-FEB-1994 09:08:50.83 BARKES.9401;4 5-NOV-1993 10:05:01.55 BARKES.9402;10 6-DEC-1993 06:41:41.08 BARKES.9403;5 17-JAN-1994 01:13:38.13 BARKES.9404;3 18-FEB-1994 07:53:06.66 BARKES.9405;7 27-FEB-1994 13:47:53.40 CSEARCH.COM;4 3-DEC-1993 08:18:55.76 DIREC.COM;8 27-FEB-1994 13:46:44.04 DIREC.DAT;3 27-FEB-1994 09:35:16.50 DO_MANY.COM;4 3-DEC-1993 08:41:18.63 LIBDATE.DAT;1 27-FEB-1994 09:44:23.72 MATCH.COM;1 6-DEC-1993 05:47:37.79 ROBOVAX.COM;48 17-JAN-1994 00:35:25.59 SPAWN.DAT;1 27-FEB-1994 09:12:33.91 Total of 14 files. ******************* FIGURE 2. AUTOLOG.DAT;1 1994/02/27 09:08:50.83 BARKES.9401;4 1993/11/05 10:05:01.55 BARKES.9402;10 1993/12/06 06:41:41.08 BARKES.9403;5 1994/01/17 01:13:38.13 BARKES.9404;3 1994/02/18 07:53:06.66 BARKES.9405;7 1994/02/27 13:47:53.40 CSEARCH.COM;4 1993/12/03 08:18:55.76 DIREC.COM;8 1994/02/27 13:46:44.04 DIREC.DAT;3 1994/02/27 09:35:16.50 DO_MANY.COM;4 1993/12/03 08:41:18.63 LIBDATE.DAT;1 1994/02/27 09:44:23.72 MATCH.COM;1 1993/12/06 05:47:37.79 ROBOVAX.COM;48 1994/01/17 00:35:25.59 SPAWN.DAT;1 1994/02/27 09:12:33.91 Total of 14 files.