Multiple Extension problem in OpenVMS

OpenVMS, the veteran Operating system. Still rules many territories in the tech world. Most of the Stock exchanges in world is under this veteran OS. Many Railway corporations are in his influence still. Indian Railway, the world biggest railway system is with him last few decades. Lots of process control systems are served by OpenVMS server. Lots of Steel plants are saved their life with this grandpa.

Oh !!!

Again I started story telling.

Yes, I know our problem is how to handle multiple extensions in OpenVMS.

For Example,

If you have file named ,test.php.en;1

  Don't scared about the ‘;’ and ‘1’ after the file name. Its VMS style of file handling. ‘;1’ tells you that, you are using first version of the file named test.php.en. If you modify the test.php.en, then new version will be created. then its name will be test.php.en;2.

This is the way which VMS helps his users to trace back. The maximum number of VMS file version will be 32767 !!!

Oooops !!!.

You can modify your file more than 30000 and still revert back to first version.

OK, OK.

If you have a file named test.php.en and you wanted to open it.

what you will do?

you will list the files by entering

$ dir

then list of the files will be listed as below:

Directory ALET$DKA100:[SYS0.SYSCOMMON.HP.HPSMH]
SMH$SPECIFIC.SAVE;1 SMH$START.COM;1     SMH$STOP.COM;1      SMH$STOP_SNMPAGENTS.COM;1
TEST^.PHP.EN;2      TEST^.PHP.EN;1

 

This name may lead you to a confusion. one extra ‘^’ symbol added with your file name. And if you type the file name as TEST^.PHP.EN; to open the file, Obviously system will not open the file for you.

Its because VMS handles multiple extensions as a special case.

 

This problem will annoy you many places. When you wanted to check the differences between TEST^.PHP.EN;1 and TEST^.PHP.EN;2 , you will get an error message.

 

$ diff TEST^.PHP.EN;2  TEST^.PHP.EN;1

“%DCL-W-PARMDEL, invalid parameter delimiter - check use of special characters  \^\ “

 

So, our problem is defined now !!! .

We need to use the multiple extension files smoothly.

The resolution also very smooth.just declare below command at your telnet/terminal emulator window. That’s it.

 

$ set proces/parse_style=extended

Now everything works fine. you can use any multiple doted file, as usual.

Ask me, If you have any more questions