sommar@enea.UUCP.UUCP (03/27/87)
If you use Joe Meadows' splendid utility VERB to get the syntax for the command SET MESSAGE you will find a qualifier /LANGUAGE. However, trying SET LANGUAGE=GERMAN has no effect. To a message definition in the source file to the MESSAGE compiler you can add /LANGUAGE=GERMAN (for instance). Furthermore, extract the macro $MREC_DEF from the library SYS$LIBRARY:LIB.MAR. This macro describes in some way the records in a executable message file such as SYSMSG.EXE. (Actually, I learnt of this macro from the source code of another splendid utility of Joe's, UNMESSAGE.) Here you will find the constants MREC$C_ENGLISH, MREC$C_GERMAN and MREC$C_FRENCH. There are also pointers to the fields in the message records. (At least I guess they are). And among MREC$B_IDENT and MREC$B_FAOCNT you will also find MREC$B_LANG. (Pardon me, if all the MREC names aren't 100% correct.) Now, do anyone know the background to this? Apparently DEC have made preparations for a multi-lingual environment, such as AT&T is planning for Unix. Is it anything that will appear in the future (V5?) or is it just something that was planned, but canceled? I recall that the /LANGUAGE qualifier was present in V3 too.