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

[VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG]

In article <lvsq8i$s0t$1 at dont-email.me>, David Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> writes:
>Paul Sture wrote:
>> On 2014-09-23, VAXman-  @SendSpamHere.ORG <VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG> wrote:
>>> In article <lkr8fb-diu2.ln1 at news.chingola.ch>,
>>> Paul Sture <nospam at sture.ch> writes:
>>>> On 2014-09-23, VAXman-  @SendSpamHere.ORG <VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> $ 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!
>> 
>> Aha. Thanks.
>> 
>
>Don't give Steve more ammunition in his crusade against VMS system 
>management.  Really, I'm pretty laid back.  But that sequence of 
>commands really sucks.  Even a +8 might have been acceptable.  But if 
>you're going to set the number of acceptable arguments to 16, the "8" is 
>really stupid.

DCL_CTLFLAGS (a hint from Allen Ludden, the password is: FLAGS!) is a bit
mask.

-- 
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker    VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG

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