HP OpenVMS Systems

Ask the Wizard Questions

Parsing routine

The Question is:

Are there any (RTL or public domain) routines for parsing
standard DCL file-selection qualifiers? I would like to
make a program DCL-like and accept things like

  $ MYPROG *.TXT/SINCE=TODAY/EXCLUDE=SPOD.TXT

Of course I could code this up myself, but it seems like a major
wheel-reinventing exercise. I'm hoping there might be
something a bit better than LIB$FIND_FILE, since obviously
you must have written this for DIRECTORY, TYPE, SEARCH,...

The Answer is:

    There is no CLI$ support for this. What they want is the "LIB$"
    routine (I forget its name) used by DELETE, RENAME, etc, to do the
    "common file qualifier parsing".  This routine is NOT part of the RTL
    and is available only in SYSBLDLIB.OLB during a VMS build.  Too bad -
    it would be generally useful.

    We should really provide that functionality, either as a full fledged
    lib$ version, or at least in source form 'as is'.

    It would be better still if we could fix it first such that it
    deals better with 'locked files' that would not match the selection.