[Info-vax] Unexpected error using ZIP for OpenVMS

[Paul Sture]

On Thu, 22 Dec 2011 06:56:50 -0800, Steven Schweda wrote:

>> From the programming point of view, [...]
> 
>    Good luck with that argument.  You're up against a fellow
> who seems to believe that a car which runs out of fuel and a car whose
> engine bursts into flame are essentially equivalent.  (Personally, I
> expect one of those events to happen in some ordinary circumstances, but
> not the other.)

:-)
 
>> An *unexpected error* from the programming point of view is usually
>> caused by a hardware fault or human error (disk getting full). [...]
> 
>    I wouldn't call a disk-full condition an unexpected error.

Yes, I should have qualified that with something like "in an order entry 
application", for that is what I was thinking of when I wrote the above.

You are quite correct when applied to programs such as zip or unzip.

> If a program complained about a disk-full condition when the disk wasn't
> actually full, then _that_ would be unexpected. For example, some old
> versions of Zip on some system types might create a temporary archive on
> the wrong device or file system (typically in the current directory,
> instead of in the user-specified archive destination directory), so the
> user might get a disk-full complaint about a disk which the program
> shouldn't have been using.  The program might put out an accurate
> complaint about a condition which the program's author anticipated, but
> the condition occurred only because of a defect in the program, so an
> ordinary user would not expect the error.  Just as a user might not
> expect an error when Zip tries to read a perfectly normal Stream or
> Stream_CR file.

Understood.  Does the VMS flavour of Zip use SYS$SCRATCH for temporary 
storage?  I know I've had to redirect that somewhere other than the 
default with other utilities.


-- 
Paul Sture