[Info-vax] Long uptime cut short by Hurricane Sandy

[David Froble]

VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:

> In DCL, one can delete a character from a string with - (subtract) and one
> can add strings with a "+" (just like in Hoff's bash example!).  I can, for
> example, remove the "$" in this string: "This is a $ sign." with -"$".  In
> DCL, the subtract character will delete the very first occurrance of said 
> character that's specified when encountered in the string.  If no character
> is found, nothing is done.  HB pointed out that using the ()s would define
> the scope better but I assumed no "funny" characters would be in the file
> prefix.  The multiple -"-" -"-" remove the dashes in the time and the -":"
> -":" remove the colons in the time.  Surely, you could see that if you'd
> have tried to understand it instead of choosing to denigrate DCL.

Yep, that's where I've used it.  When you got procedures that run often 
and you need files with a date and time stamp in the filename it's very 
useful.  But if you don't use it often, it does (at least for me) stop 
you when you're skimming through DCL code.  Even if you're aware of what 
it does, I still have to stop and think about it.

> A lack of understanding of the semantics doesn't make it cryptic.

Actually, for me it does, but, if it was preceded by something such as:

$! Build a filename with date stamp without the dashes and colens

Then the DCL code would be much easier to follow ....

My DCL code has lots of comments, but to be fair (I hate doing that) the 
bash code would  benefit from comments also.