7 replies to this topic

[Chris Pepper]

Does anyone know of any improvements to the ALIAS command in versions 6, 7, 8?

Specifically, is it still restricted to 40 characters? Is the Upper case conversion problem fixed? (Unix/Linux related)

[DARREN]

Chris

Can you provide me with example syntax of what does not work and I will try it out on 6.2

Daz

Does anyone know of any improvements to the ALIAS command in versions 6, 7, 8?

Specifically, is it still restricted to 40 characters? Is the Upper case conversion problem fixed? (Unix/Linux related)

[Chris Pepper]

Assume you have as standard sequential file. Created with some random text.

Set up a Function to read the file with a total path length > 40 characters. Obviously this will depend on your environment.

e.g. /thisdirectory/thispath/thissubdir/somefile.txt (anything as long as it is > 40 characters).

Then to read it..
$$THEPATH = "/thisdirectory/thispath/thissubdir/somefile.txt"
ALIAS('FILEDEF',$$THEPATH)

On my systems it truncates at 40 characters (the same as the max length of ALTERNATE on the starndard boots.

For the Caps problem, just do the same but include mixed case in the string eg:
$$THEPATH = "/ThisDirectory/ThisSubdir/somefile.txt"

On my versions they all get converted to lower case by ProIV so it would attempt to access /thisdirectory/thissubdir/somefile.txt

Thanks!

[Rick Young]

This worked for me:
$$PATH = '/u00/tmp/longdirname22/SecondLongDirName41/'
$FILE = 'test.txt'
$$FILENAME = $$PATH + $FILE
ALIAS('ASCII',$$FILENAME)

I read filedef ASCII, and threw in a UMSG - and got the contents of my test.txt

6.2.35 kernel on HP-UX 11iv2

-Rick

Assume you have as standard sequential file. Created with some random text.

Set up a Function to read the file with a total path length > 40 characters. Obviously this will depend on your environment.

e.g. /thisdirectory/thispath/thissubdir/somefile.txt (anything as long as it is > 40 characters).

Then to read it..
$$THEPATH = "/thisdirectory/thispath/thissubdir/somefile.txt"
ALIAS('FILEDEF',$$THEPATH)

On my systems it truncates at 40 characters (the same as the max length of ALTERNATE on the starndard boots.

For the Caps problem, just do the same but include mixed case in the string eg:
$$THEPATH = "/ThisDirectory/ThisSubdir/somefile.txt"

On my versions they all get converted to lower case by ProIV so it would attempt to access /thisdirectory/thissubdir/somefile.txt

Thanks!

[DARREN]

Hey Rick. You are fast. I will try it out myself to confirm but I think Chris has his answer.

Daz

[Rick Young]

Hey Rick. You are fast. I will try it out myself to confirm but I think Chris has his answer.

Daz

So long as I never hear those words from my wife, I'm happy

By sheer coincidence, I was just testing a couple of things, and had come to put my own seemingly unrelated question, when I saw Chris' post.

-Rick

[Glenn Meyers]

My wife told me that the difference between a husband and a lover was about 45 minutes.

[Chris Pepper]

Thanks guys! (My wife is currently about 4 hours flying time south of me at the moment so I can't check up on any other tips !)