[Info-vax] SET DEFAULT iterative logical name translation

[alanfe...@gmail.com]

On Friday, October 22, 2021 at 5:58:22 AM UTC-4, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2021-10-22 kl. 08:45, skrev ala...@ g.com: 
> > This used to be broken. Strange things would happen under certain conditions, like only the directory being changed or the directory being hidden in sys$disk. It appears to be fixed on EISNER. Is there documentation of this fix somewhere? I've been searching on the web, only to come up empty. TIA! (^_^( 
> >
> What used to be brooken and what fix? 
> Care to post an example?

I can't post an example, as I don't have access to a system where it was broken. But I have the following notes:

The DCL program SET DEFAULT has two problems with nested logical
names: 

 1.) If the first translation has a trailing colon and there is no
explicit directory-spec in the second translation, SYS$DISK is changed
to the 1st translation and the directory portion is not changed. The
"actual" current directory remains hidden in SYS$DISK. 

 2.) If the 1st translation has no trailing colon, then only the
directory portion of the default is changed! This can leave SYS$DISK
incorrect thereby leaving the default incorrect. 

Additionally, in certain circumstances, SET DEFAULT returns an error
but still changes your process to a bad default. 

I'd like to know what version of VMS this was fixed in and the ECO release notes if anyone can find them. There's an excellent post in cov from way, way back describing this, perhaps in a better way, but I can't find it.