[Info-vax] Stupid question of the day, re: OpenVMS process names

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2020-03-16 14:21:05 +0000, Tim Lovern said:

> unfortunately, I cannot avoid having some meaning to them. The legacy 
> code I am supporting uses the process name for certain detached 
> processes to identify them for message passing. It's actually kind of 
> clever, in an 80's sort of way.

I first realized this stuff was broken back in the 1980s, so there's that.

Lack of an in-built process scheduler is still a gap for folks involved 
with overhauls and updates and new work.

> A program that needs to receive messages, looks at the process name it 
> it running under, and then constructs all the data structures required 
> to get messages intended for that process.

Usual for that is the PID.

Some folks didn't $hiber the process on $creprc process startup 
(PRC$M_HIBER) to fetch the new PID for whatever setup was needed such 
as creating a control mailbox using the new process' PID, and then 
$wake the process to start up the image.

Having the new process contact a directory service is an approach I've 
used in moderate- to larger-sized apps. Central point for control, 
monitoring, debugging, and related tasks. Basically, a process 
scheduler.

Here? I'd document the risks of the current scheme for anyone that 
might follow you into this code pool as the process name handling can 
be quite subtle to the unwary, but there's not much reason to 
prioritize a fix this over the other messes that usually also exist in 
old code.



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