[Info-vax] Foreign commands ... newbie question

[John Reagan]

"Steven Schweda" <sms.antinode at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:3b23d42c-2182-4e58-acfb-fd3f3aeafac3 at r1g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
> On Oct 17, 6:51 am, supervinx <ness... at libero.it> wrote:
>
>> I could:
>> 1) Add a long list of
>> [...]
>
>   I would.  (I do.)
>
>> but it's not so flexible
>
>   What kind of flexibility do you seek, exactly?
>
>> I've read about DCL$PATH (I'm using OVMS 8.3)
>
>   I've read about it, too, but I've never used it (except as
> an experiment).  I've spent too much time on UNIX(-like)
> systems, asking "which xxx" or "whence xxx" or "type xxx",
> trying to figure out what "xxx" actually means, to want to
> repeat the process on any VMS systems.  (I don't even know
> how to do a "which xxx" on VMS.  Is there a way?  "show
> symbol xxx" works for me every time.)
>

'which' doesn't know about shell aliases so it isn't like "show symbol". 
"alias" and "show symbol" are the same.

For 'which', it returns a pathname to a file if you typed it to a shell. 
Without DCL$PATH, 'which' isn't much more than DIR SYS$SYSTEM:.  That's 
where DCL tries to find any verb that isn't a foreign command.  With 
DCL$PATH, it looks at more places than SYS$SYSTEM:

On some UNIX systems, you'll find that your PATH starts from the contents of 
/etc/PATH.  Whenever a product installs, instead of dumping all of its 
images into SYS$COMMON:[SYSEXE] for DCL to fine, it can put the images 
whereever (like in some easy to spot directory containing the name/version 
of the product) and then puts its entry into /etc/PATH.  Others (like my 
Ubutu linux box) seems to use /etc/environment to set the default PATH. 
I've been frustrated trying to keep track of how PATH is defaulted on 
various systems.  However, once set, I like the concept.

John