[Info-vax] : Re: Default protection question

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2010-11-13 21:26, Phillip Helbig---undress to reply wrote:
> In article<ib9agl$bkp$1 at speranza.aioe.org>, Wilm Boerhout
> <wboerhout-deletethis at gmail.com>  writes:
>
>> Every [nnnmmm] numeric directory, including [000000] can be written in
>> DCL commands as [nnn,mmm] or even<nnn,mmm>. It is indeed a legacy from
>> the RSX-11 compatibility days. So DUA0:[0,0] , DKA100<10,100>  and
>> DKA200:[1,4] are all valid directory (well, "account") notations.
>
> But can't EVERY directory (not just numerical ones) be written with<>
> instead of []?
>
> Try
>
>     $ SET DEFAULT<>
>
> Yes, it will break some procedures which make too many assumptions.

Yes. The <> as delimiters for directories have nothing to do with RSX, 
even though RSX also accepts that, by the way.
These are two different issues.

The [gggnnn] directories can all be written as [g,n] instead. That's 
from RSX, which didn't support named directories in the old days, and 
directories were the same as the UIC you used. So the root directory was 
[0,0] (if you wanted a name for it, but you seldom need that, it is more 
known by it's FID (4,4,0)). (RSX did later on start to support named 
directories, by the way.)

The <> directory delimiters were from when DEC for a while decided that 
this is what should be used for directory delimiters. Before VMS 
shipped, they reverted the decision, so VMS continued to use [], as RSX.
However, TOPS-20 did go with the <> notation, and to allow for greater 
compatibility, VMS also allows <> as an alternative to [], as do RSX. In 
TOPS-20 you normally use <>, I am not sure if TOPS-20 will allow [].
(Can check later, if someone really wants to know...)

	Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol