[Info-vax] VMS dying? Nah, it refused to die here

[Norm Raphael]

On 09/23/14, johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk wrote:
 
> On Tuesday, 23 September 2014 22:17:10 UTC+1, Norm Raphael wrote:
> > >On 09/23/14, VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
> > 
> > >
> > 
> > >In article <lkr8fb-diu2.ln1 at news.chingola.ch>, Paul Sture <nospam at sture.ch> writes:
> > 
> > >
> > 
> > >>>$ shutdown -h now
> > 
> > >>>%DCL-W-DEFOVF, too many command procedure parameters - limit to eight
> > 
> > >
> > 
> > >Well VMS did refuse to die at the bidding of a Unix command :-)
> > 
> > >
> > 
> > >> Hey Paul, try this (assuming a fairly recent OpenVMS):
> > 
> > >>
> > 
> > >> $ MCR SYSGEN
> > 
> > >> SYSGEN> SET DCL_CTLFLAGS 8
> > 
> > >> SYSGEN> WRITE ACTIVE
> > 
> > >> SYSGEN> EXIT
> > 
> > >> $ shutdown -h now
> > 
> > >>
> > 
> > >> PS, don't do it in production. ;)
> > 
> > >>
> > 
> > >>Can't wait to see what it does :-)
> > 
> > >
> > 
> > >It makes DCL accept up to 16 arguments instead of the typical 8 arguments.
> 
> > >Your "-h" and "now" would become parameters P9 and P10 and the shutdown 
> > 
> > >procedure would be off and marching!
> > 
> > ...and this is documented where?
> > 
> > Norman F. Raphael
> > 
> > "Everything worthwhile eventually 
> > 
> > degenerates into real work." -Murphy
> 
> A search, using everyone's favourite search engine, for
> "dcl_ctlflags 8" found it in the VMS 8.4 DCL Dictionary at 
> http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/84final/9996/9996pro_18.html?jumpid=reg_r1002_caen
> though I don't know when it first arrived.
> 
> "Setting bit 3 of DCL_CTLFLAGS to 1, specifies from one to sixteen
> optional parameters to pass to the command procedure. The symbols
> (P1, P2, ... P16) are assigned character string values in the order
> of entry. If you clear the bit 3 of DCL_CTLFLAGS, the default
> parameters are set (that is, (P1, P2, ... P8))."
> 
> Documentation - stuff that software used to have before Windows and
> illiterate youths came along.
> 
 Aha!  This is evidently new for V8.4 as V8.3 has a different definition of 
that bit, and apparently is still restricted to 8 parameters.

 Norman F. Raphael
"Everything worthwhile eventually 
degenerates into real work." -Murphy