[Info-vax] OT: Rob Short: Operating System Evolution

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <00A9725E.9E56C26F at sendspamhere.org>,
	VAXman-  @SendSpamHere.ORG writes:
> In article <7qjfu4FhiqU4 at mid.individual.net>, billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes:
>>In article <AyzF6Rqgzkoc at eisner.encompasserve.org>,
>>	koehler at eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) writes:
>>> In article <7qecbeF3tt7rbU1 at mid.individual.net>, billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes:
>>>> 
>>>> Of course it does.  If I want to run an executable file under VMS
>>>> using RUN if the file ends in .EXE I don't have to include the
>>>> extension but if it is anything else, I do.  VMS uses extensions
>>>> just like other OSes.
>>> 
>>>    You ever try to convince a UNIX cc command that you have C source
>>>    in a .a file?  You can do that on VMS.  I don't but not because the
>>>    OS or its layered products force me.
>> 
>>cc -x c xxx.a
> 
>        -x language
>            Specify explicitly the language for the following input files (rather than letting the compiler choose a default
>            based on the file name suffix).  This option applies to all following input files until the next -x option.  Possible
>            values for language are:
> 
>                    c  c-header  c-cpp-output
>                    c++  c++-header  c++-cpp-output
>                    objective-c  objective-c-header  objective-c-cpp-output
>                    objective-c++ objective-c++-header objective-c++-cpp-output
>                    assembler  assembler-with-cpp
>                    ada
>                    f77  f77-cpp-input f95  f95-cpp-input
>                    java
> 
> 
>>Worked just fine for me on FreeBSD 6.1 with GCC 3.4.4. Pprobably
>>wouldn't work on the old Ultrix cc but I don't have a system handy
>>to find out.
> 
> ..and you faulted $ RUN because it defaults to .EXE yet didn't understand
> that it doesn't matter the extension.

I didn't fault anything.  As a matter of fact, When someone else
mentioned the significance of .EXE I specificaly said I created
and executed a file with an extension of .ZIP under VMS.

The above example is, of course, not an OS dependence anyway, it
is an application dependence.  Bob seemed to think that there was
no way to get around it and I merely pointred out that unless you
are using 20 year old software, it is trivial to get around it.  Of
course, the question remains as to why one would want to name a C
file "something.a" in the first place.  Now, an Ada file, that's a
horse of a different color.  :-)

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>