[Info-vax] EDTINI.EDT Issues

Mon Jun 27 22:40:56 EDT 2016

On 2016-06-28 00:25:34 +0000, Paul Richards said:

> Tony: I'm new to OpenvMS so please bear wth me.

Welcome to OpenVMS.

Please read the user's manual; the introductory guide to OpenVMS.  If 
you don't read the user manual, please expect a very long and very 
confusing slog as you sort out how things work.  OpenVMS is almost 
certainly not like any other system you've used before, and it has 
different tools, different commands and different terminology.   Trying 
to port over knowledge of Windows or Unix will not end well, in general 
— OpenVMS is different.

Here is the User's Manual:

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/731final/6489/6489pro.html  (HTML)
http://h20565.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c04623190 
 (PDF)

Also see the OpenVMS Beginner's FAQ:

http://saf.bio.caltech.edu/vms_beginners_faq.html

In this FAQ, see the section on EDT initialization files.  (That 
section shows using a logical name that EDT will use when invoked, too. 
 That avoids needing to explicitly reference the initialization file 
when you invoke the editor.  More on this later.)

> It is not clear to me which variant of EDT (TPU/EDT/EVE) is loaded when 
> EDIT is invoked.

You are not invoking EDT.

Micro-history: EDT is effectively deprecated and is a very limited 
editor, with the main goal of that was command-level and source code 
compatibility with the EDT editor on RSX-11M — an operating system from 
the 1970s — and on some other and similarly-old text editors from that 
era.    While there are folks that will certainly never be dragged off 
of EDT, EDIT /TPU (the so-called EVE text editor) was supposed to 
replace most uses of EDT many years ago (starting back around 1993), 
though other text editors are optionally available for OpenVMS 
including ports of vim, emacs, microemacs and some others, and 
commercial packages including DECset LSEDIT.

If you want to explicitly invoke EDT, then the command is EDIT/EDT.

If you want to pass EDT commands to a text editor, then that editor 
must be EDT or EDT-compatible.  Passing EDT commands to a different 
editor doesn't work, as you've discovered.   In your case, you're 
invoking the EDIT /TPU editor known as EVE.

Here's an overview of the EDIT command, from the system help library.   
If you're at all familiar with Unix man pages, the help library is 
similar, but rather more limited in terms of navigation commands, 
searching and related.

++++++++++ ++++++++++
$ help edit

EDIT

    The EDIT commands perform the following functions:

    o  Invoke the Access Control List Editor to create or modify an
       access control list for an object (see /ACL).

    o  Invoke the EDT screen-oriented editor (see /EDT).

    o  Invoke the FDL editor to create and modify File Definition
       Language files (see /FDL).

    o  Invoke the SUMSLP batch-oriented editor to update a single input
       file with multiple files of edit commands (see /SUM).

    o  Invoke the TECO editor (see /TECO).

    o  Invoke the TPU editor (see /TPU).

  Additional information available:

  /ACL       /EDT       /FDL       /SUM       /TECO      /TPU

EDIT Subtopic?
++++++++++ ++++++++++

> Is this defined somewhere? Where?

You were previously pointed to DCL commands similar to the following 
two commands, which set up a symbol (E) that invokes the EDT text 
editor.   These symbols are usually set up in your LOGIN.COM login 
command procedure, so you'll have these available each time you log 
into OpenVMS.   Invoke them live at the DCL $ prompt if you want, that 
works too.   If you want to pass those EDTINI commands to the EDT 
editor, then you will want to use the second command shown, with that 
second command assuming that your EDT initialization file is located in 
your SYS$LOGIN login directory and named EDTINI.EDT.   If it's not, 
you'll have to change that part of the command to reflect the location 
and name of the file.   You can also set up a logical name EDTINI, 
which will work automatically with the first command below.  See the 
EDT documentation or the OpenVMS beginner's FAQ mentioned earlier for 
details on that.

$ E :== EDIT/EDT

$ E :== EDIT/EDT/COMMAND=sys$login:EDTINI.EDT

> I tried $ EDIT /TPU /INIT=EDTINI.EDT NESTTEST.COB. I get a message 'Did 
> not finish execution of initialization file:
> sys$common:[sysmgr]edtini.edt'. There were a couple of messages before 
> this but they disappeared before I could read them.

Passing commands for EDT into the EDIT /TPU (the EVE editor) won't work.

> I've stripped edtini.edt down to contain only the Function key 
> definitions and this seems to have worked but I still get the error 
> message.

You could add a shakespearean sonnet in there, and EDIT /TPU (EVE)  
will return errors.

> As far as a keyboard is concerned I'm running on a PC laptop with a 
> numeric keypad and PuTTy so I get, for example 'Num Lock' = PF1 (Find), 
> '/' = PF2 (Help), '*' = PF3 (Change Direction), '-' = PF4 (Command) and
> the text editing control keys all work e.g. Ctrl-B, Ctrl-E etc.

We've just been discussing that mess in another thread; OpenVMS doesn't 
do well with other keyboards (it works, but the users get to figure 
that part out), and the documentation and even some of the developers 
persist in using DEC LK-series keyboards that just aren't available 
(new) anymore rather than using and documenting what is available for 
keyboards.   You'll have to determine the mapping for the PC keyboard 
and the particular terminal emulator you're using.  (I don't have 
Microsoft Windows around and use a terminal emulator other than PuTTY, 
and a different keyboard layout than you're likely using.)

> I have a document which shows all these keys and it appears to be an 
> EVE document.

EVE is the name of a text editor on OpenVMS, not a document type or 
document format.

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/73final/6021/6021pro.html (HTML)
http://h20565.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c04623112 (PDF)

> So I'm happy (mostly) with the key definitions but I want to find out 
> why I'm getting the error messages. Also, based on the previous 
> paragraph, what keypad am I emulating? (I said I was a newbie :-))

Again: please read the user manual.  Your experience with other systems 
will not serve you well with learning OpenVMS, as OpenVMS is quite 
different from most other systems.  The user's manual will get you the 
terms and concepts, which will also avoid confusion here — such as what 
I'm referring to with my use of "symbol" and "logical name" here.   
Those don't work the same as on some other systems, either.

After the user manual, either the Programming Concepts Manual or the 
System Managers' manuals, depending on which direction you're 
interested in heading with OpenVMS.