OBERMAN@LLL-ICDC.ARPA ("Kevin Oberman, LLNL, 422-6955, L-156", 415) (09/21/87)
Joel M Snyder writes: >This, of course, doesn't help you much. A couple of alternative are >available. One possiblity is to store your own date, call it "last-time- >I-read-this-file" in the authorization file. My opinion: bad idea. >Don't be mucking in the authorization file; some day, Digital will >come around and cut your fingers off and won't even warn you. I don't think so. DEC has documented the proper method for accessing and using the User Data Area oft the SYSUAF. I must admit that I can't find the documentation right now, but I used it to design some internal software and it worked fine. There is a pointer to the User Data area in each UAF record. Once DEC documents anything, they are prone to keep it around unless they absolutely have to kill it. And then they are usually very good at documenting the change. R. Kevin Oberman Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory arpa: oberman@lll-icdc.arpa (415) 422-6955 Disclaimer: Neither my employer nor myself can take resposibility for the accuracy of this information. I believe it is correct, but if it's not I can only say "Sorry". I'm a rotten typist and a worse speller, so forgive any silly errors.
face@amethyst.UUCP (Chris Janton) (09/23/87)
DEC documented the user defined area in the VMS 2.x documentation. In an early release of VMS 3.x they specifically undocumented the feature. The wording was something like "we did document it but we never should have." There is no user defined area in the UAF, in spite of what the file description might lead you to believe. DEC has $GETUAI and $SETUAI to fiddle with the UAF. If you don't use these system services you will probably run into trouble later on in life.