[Info-vax] : AUTHORIZE Enhancement

[IanD]

On Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 4:37:54 AM UTC+11, Art wrote:
> While we're asking for shiny new things from VMS, could I ask for a simple (?) change whereby the output from e.g. MCR AUTHORIZE LIST * /FULL could be "enhanced" with /OUTPUT=SOMEWHERE_OTHER_THAN____SYSUAF.LIS ?
> 
> I know I can do DEFINE SYS$OUTPUT etc. but c'mon, /OUT= please.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Art

Can we also add support for input/output in other formats also?

I'm thinking not just UAF but every utility in VMS (in your spare time of course!)

i.e.

mc authorize list */out=x.x/format=CSV
or
/format=JSON
or
/format=XML

Maybe qualify this by a /fields=(OWNER,PRIV,DEVICE) option also?

mc authorize list */out=x.x/format=CSV/fields=(USERNAME,OWNER)

The notion of moving data in/out of VMS utilities easily would save people a lot of time and/or reduce some of the frustration I experience when dealing with VMS data and having to resort to DCL scripts just to get simple report data out of VMS

mc authorize list */out=disusered_accounts.xml/format=XML/fields=(USERNAME,FLAG=(disuser))

has got to be easier than dumping the uaf, searching a window for disuered accounts and then sub-searching for username

Perhaps enhanced redirection / better piping might mitigate some of the frustration but I still think the need to easily export / input data in universally used formats like csv, json and xml natively has got to make people's life a lot easier?

I believe there is a unix project that someone started a while back that was looking at a similar idea of having csv as a minimum available in every tool for input / output. We can go one further by also supporting json and xml perhaps

Maybe have some type of universal parser that we can throw the input / output through versus changing every utility might be a better idea? Then over time, we just keep adding the different utilities it knows about