[Info-vax] Extending nested directory search syntax

[chris]

On 07/08/21 19:25, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2021-07-08, Arne Vajhøj<arne at vajhoej.dk>  wrote:
>> On 7/8/2021 1:51 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> If you want to search all directories under sys$examples: (for example),
>>> it would be nice if the following syntax worked instead of giving
>>> an error:
>>>
>>> $ dir sys$examples:[...]
>>> %DIRECT-E-OPENIN, error opening SYS$EXAMPLES:[...] as input
>>> -RMS-F-DIR, error in directory name
>>>
>>> Would anyone else find such syntax to be useful ?
>>
>> Would you also expect:
>>
>> $ dir SYS$SYSROOT:[SYSHLP.EXAMPLES][...]
>>
>> to work?
>>
>
> Yes. I don't see any way in which that would break existing behaviour.
>
> You would still get one directory specification if you use f$parse()
> or any of the other lower level parsing routines; it's just that the
> VMS filename parser would combine it into one directory specification
> before returning it to the user.
>
> As far as I can see, my suggestion is backwards compatible with the
> existing syntax and just introduces additional functionality that
> does not break existing functionality.
>
> It's annoying not being able to search subdirectories in this way
> using logical names when the VMS designers have gone to the effort
> to add such detailed logical name functionality and it seems more like
> an artificial limitation in the filename specification parser.
>
> Simon.
>
  Why not write a one line dcl script and alias to a suitable command 
name ?. That's normally how it would be done in unix...