odd PH/VMS logical name behaviour

[Lloyd, Gavin]

We've got OpenVMS V7.1-2 and I tried your code and it reported blank in
quiz (i.e. did not get logical value).

FYI - All our logicals are declared without the speechmarks (e.g. DEFINE
LOG VAL not DEFINE "LOG" "VAL") which uppercases everything - so no
problems.

Did a small test as well if that helps:

<---------------------
DCL> def gav gavval
DCL> def "Gav" gavval2
DCL> sho log G*   

(LNM$PROCESS_TABLE)

  "GAV" = "GAVVAL"
  "Gav" = "GAVVAL2"
---------------------->

Regards,
Gavin Lloyd - FM Global.


-----Original Message-----
From: powerh-l-admin@lists.sowder.com
[mailto:powerh-l-admin@lists.sowder.com] On Behalf Of Chris Sharman
Sent: 10 March 2004 17:11
To: Hamilton, Allison
Cc: powerh-l@lists.sowder.com; doug.moffatt@cognos.com
Subject: Re: odd PH/VMS logical name behaviour


Hamilton, Allison wrote:
> Chris,  I think this may be a difference in behaviour between 7.2 and
> 7.3 of OpenVMS because I tried this in 7.10G3, 7.10G5 and 8.30D4 (all
on 
> 6.2 of OpenVMS) and 8.40D on 7.2-1 and 8.40D on 7.2-2 of OpenVMS and 
> they retrieve the value of Test correctly.  I don't have a 7.3 OpenVMS

> system available to me yet, so I can't test it there.  Perhaps there
is 
> a setting on the logical or in your environment that would affect the 
> default behaviour of the logical translation function (trnlnm) that is

> available in 7.3???
> 
> I know that OpenVMS is moving more and more into the Posix world which
> requires case sensitivity, so more things behave somewhat differently.

> I don't know if this one is an intentional change or not on the part
of 
> OpenVMS.  Usually they don't change the default behaviour of things so

> drastically, but who knows.

Curious. Nothing I'm aware of - DCL has always uppercased everything, 
and still does, unless you enable the mixed-case behaviour which goes 
with the ODS5 file system, which we haven't.

> Prior to 7.3 retrieval using uppercase always retrieved the correct
> value due to the basically uppercase or case insensitive nature of the

> VMS environment.  PowerHouse is built with this assumption currently, 
> and generally upcases just about everything coming in to ensure it can

> find it.

sys$trnlnm (and lib$get_logical) have always had a LNM$M_CASE_BLIND 
option, but it has never been the default behaviour, and still isn't.
DCL f$trnlnm offers case-blind by default, and case-sensitive 
optionally. The older (obsolete since about V5) sys$trnlog and 
associated lib$ routine may do case-blind by default - I don't recall.

I don't think VMS has ever seen a non-compatible system service change 
like you suggest.
Anyone got access to VMS 7.3 and an earlier version to confirm/deny ?

> Allison Hamilton
> Senior Software Engineer
> Cognos Inc.
> Any opinions expressed within this message are mine alone and my
> employer cannot be held accountable for them  :-}
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: powerh-l-admin@lists.sowder.com 
> [mailto:powerh-l-admin@lists.sowder.com]On Behalf Of Chris Sharman
> Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2004 6:30 AM
> To: PowerH List
> Subject: odd PH/VMS logical name behaviour
> 
> 
> I've got a mixed-case logical name:
> $ def "Test" "MyTest"
> 
> $ quiz
> Qz> def mytest char*10 = getsystemval("Test")
> Qz> rep mytest
> 
> Reports it as blank - presumably it doesn't find it.
> Defining it as uppercase works fine.
> 
> VMS logical names can be defined mixed-case (but are usually 
> uppercase). They can be fetched either case-sensitive or case-blind.
> 
> Powerhouse would appear to be uppercasing the supplied string, then 
> doing a case-sensitive search - not the optimum behaviour ! Be nice if

> it used the string I gave it, and probably set the case-blind flag to 
> avoid breaking most existing stuff.
> 
> VMS 7.3, PH 7.10G3


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