[Info-vax] Radical command line suggestion

[Keith Cayemberg]

On Friday, March 20, 2015 at 1:41:29 PM UTC+1, Jan-Erik Soderholm wrote:
> Stephen Hoffman skrev den 2015-03-20 12:47:
> > On 2015-03-19 21:41:08 +0000, JF Mezei said:
> >
> >> On 15-03-19 17:29, mcleanjoh at gmail.com wrote:
. . .
. . .
> > As for navigating a list of qualifiers within HELP, that works if you know
> > what the qualifiers do or which one(s) you need to use.  As a reminder.
> > Otherwise, you can end up using * to display them all, and with no search
> > and no reverse paging and such...
> 
> Any (all I'd say) terminal emulators (does anyone use anything else?)
> has large scrollback buffers.
> 
> And simple searches in the PDFs works also just fine.
> 
. . .
. . .
> And finally, that help-interface also has a fulltext search option
> on every page...

For those here interested and receptive to a quick fix for adding full-text HELP search capability to the OpenVMS command-line, the SHELP.COM DCL procedure I published in 2013 procedure is still available in the Wayback Machine. It can be used with any OpenVMS Help Library file.

http://web.archive.org/web/20131224133509/http://dcl.openvms.org/

http://web.archive.org/web/20140408033727/http://dcl.openvms.org/stories.php?story=13/09/14/2778122

Example of usage on an OpenVMS V7.3-2 AlphaServer...

$ shelp skonetski


HELP SHOW DEFAULT Examples
» $ SET DEFAULT DISK5:[SKONETSKI.SOURCES]
» DISK5:[SKONETSKI.SOURCES]

HELP SHOW USERS Examples
» S_SKONETSKI BBBBBB            1
» S_SKONETSKI BBBBBB            1

HELP SPAWN Example
» %DCL-S-SPAWNED, process SKONETSKI_1 spawned
» %DCL-S-ATTACHED, terminal now attached to process SKONETSKI_1
» %DCL-S-RETURNED, control returned to process SKONETSKI

Found 7 occurrences.

$

This way you get the whole HELP command needed to go directly to the any of occurrences found by SHELP.COM.


Here is the initial description from within SHELP.COM...

$!
$!  Procedure: SHELP.COM (Search HELP)
$!  Author:    Keith Cayemberg
$!  Date:      January 13th, 2013
$!  Version:   1.0
$!
$!  Description: Search any OpenVMS HELP Library in SYS$HELP for keywords
$!               and provide the full help command to the text found.
$!
$!    Procedure: This procedure will extract any OpenVMS HELP Library
$!               into a file (HELPFILE) and then create an OpenVMS HELP
$!               Topics Listing in another file (DEXFILE) extracted from
$!               the currently installed help library (if it doesn't already
$!               exist). Then it will search for the keyword(s) you provide
$!               as parameter 1, within the HELPFILE. Using the topic
$!               listing DEXFILE, this procedure then outputs in which
$!               help topics the keyword(s) were found. For each topic match,
$!               the complete help topic path is given, and also each line
$!               of text is displayed showing where the keyword was found.
$!
$!         Note: If either the HELPFILE or DEXFILE is existing in SYS$HELP
$!               directory, then it will not be recreated. If the files are
$!               found in the SYS$SCRATCH directory then they will also
$!               not be recreated. Neither file needs refreshing unless
$!               the specific OpenVMS HELP Library has a new or changed topic.
$!
$!         Hint: Due to long HELP paths in the output, it is a good idea to
$!               set your terminal width to at least 132 characters, before
$!               using this procedure.
$!
$!  Recommended standard foreign command:  shelp
$!
$!               $ SHELP :== @mylogical:[mydir]SHELP.COM
$!
$!  Parameters:
$!
$!          P1  The keyword(s) to search within the OpenVMS Help Library.
$!              You can search for one exact string containing multiple
$!              keywords by enclosing them in double quotes. If your search
$!              string starts with a "/" then the search string must be
$!              in double quotes. To find multiple keywords anywhere on the
$!              same line, then separate the keywords with commas, but with
$!              no spaces or quotes.
$!
$!  Qualifiers:
$!
$!    /MATch=   (optional) Enter OR, AND, NOR, NAND, etc. as described in
$!              $ HELP SEARCH /MATCH  to change whether or not all,
$!              one, or none of the keywords are to be on the same line
$!              of help text to cause a search match. The default is /MATCH=OR.
$!
$!    /LIBrary= (optional) Use to search an alternative OpenVMS help library.
$!              The default value is the standard OpenVMS HELP Library.
$!              To find other available help libraries use the command...
$!
$!                       $ dir sys$help:*.hlb
$!
$!    /WINdow=  (optional) Enter a number from 1 to 9 to set the number of
$!              lines of output around each matched help line. The default
$!              is /WINDOW = 1
$!
$!    /BRIef    This qualifier will cause only the matching help topics to be
$!              displayed. The matching lines of text within the topics are not
$!              displayed.
$!
$!    /VERbose  This qualifier will show more processing detail, especially when
$!              building the DEXFILE.
$!
$!  Examples:
$!               $ shelp  skonetski
$!               $ shelp  hoffman,skonetski
$!               $ shelp  "/FULL_DUPLEX"
$!               $ shelp  "galaxy shared memory"
$!               $ shelp  decwindows,interface /match=AND /window=2
$!               $ shelp  decwindows,interface /mat=AND/library=DBG$HELP
$!               $ shelp  conference /lib=PHONEHELP /brief
$!               $ shelp  SMCI_FLAGS /win=4/verbose
$!
$!------------------------------------------------------------------------------