[Info-vax] VMS Features I Wish Linux Had

[VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG]

In article <be79d0c8-e200-46d7-a26c-bc41a84dc5bd at googlegroups.com>, lawrencedo99 at gmail.com writes:
>On Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 9:20:59 AM UTC+12, VAXman- wrote:
>> Huh?  You thought LIB$TPARSE was simpler than CLI/CLD?  I've done some
>> extensive programming around LIB$T(ABLE_)PARSE (thousands of $STATEs/$TRA=
>Ns
>> statements) but I can tell you that when it comes to a having VMS command
>> syntax in a program, it is CLI/CLD for me. =20
>
>TPARSE was quite versatile, and could be used for other things besides comm=
>and-line parsing. Whereas CLD was only good for one thing.

I can arguing with you about that!  It just seems overkill to parse DCL-like
syntax when there's CLI/CLD.  However, I've used LIB$T(ABLE_)PARSE to augment
CLI/CLD syntax when I wanted something that wasn't able to be parsed out with
CLI/CLD.  



>So when it came to deciding where to spend precious brain cells (which are =
>likely still dormant and might not need much to wake them up), the decision=
> was easy.
>
>I even wrote VAX PASCAL routines to generate TPARSE tables at run-time. (Wh=
>y? Because it was nicer than MACRO assembler.) As I recall, there were two =
>separate tables: I think the state definitions went in one, and the strings=
> in the other. Everything was referred to via relative offsets, so the stru=
>ctures were entirely relocatable.
>
>See, those brain cells are starting to wake up already...

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

I speak to machines with the voice of humanity.