[Info-vax] Command Procedure Pipe output to a variable

[Lawrence D’Oliveiro]

On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 5:29:50 AM UTC+13, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> Underpinning one of my grumbles about logical name usage and symbol 
> usage is that OpenVMS lacks a common means and API for app 
> configuration storage, which leads to other issues not the least of 
> which are explosions of poorly-suited mechanisms including the use of 
> DCL symbols and logical names and system parameters, and several dozen 
> places where the "host name" resides. The volatile and 
> printable-MCS-only logical name key-value store is also not a great fit 
> for configuration data, discussions of its widespread (mis)use for that 
> purpose aside. And yes, y'all can put app configuration settings down 
> in the system parameters, too.

You are not suggesting that VMS adopt a Windows-style Registry, are you? Now there is a total, wonderful fustercluck: it’s supposed to be a multiuser database, allowing concurrent access and notification of changes made by one client to others. Yet none of that works. Which is why you need to reboot after making Registry changes. Do you really want to have to reboot your VMS system after every app configuration change?

Stick with Unix-style text configuration files, kept in a common directory like /etc. With symbolic names for parameters, rather than long, random hex GUIDs!