W_COSTA@UNHH.BITNET.UUCP (09/16/87)
Hello Netlanders...
Can any of you kind souls finger a particular individual or software
group within Digital for me? Specifically, I would like to write a
letter to the people who work on the DCL (and/or any other) Command
Line Interpreter (CLI) for VMS.
Background: I am currently working on my Master's thesis in Computer
Science (oh no, not another one of them!). My thesis topic involves
program [source level] portability issues. In particular, I am trying
to develop an abstraction for the kind of information that typically
passes between the user and a program via the system's command line
interface (DCL, csh, etc.). The ultimate goal would be the creation
of a customized interface that would handle command line parsing in a
method that is consistent with the conventions of the particular host,
*without* the program that uses this interface having to be aware of
what host it is actually running on.
A quick (simplistic) example: Let's say I create a nice general purpose
program that extracts a column of text from 'line' oriented files. It
needs an input source, an output sink, and two numbers that indicate
the start and end column positions of the section of text to extract.
My program would make its need's known to the interface (some how -
that's what I'm working on) and the interface, depending upon which
system it was built to support, would get the information from the user
in the appropriate manner:
DCL (VMS): $ EXTRACT INFILE/START=12/END=15 OUTFILE
csh (Unix): % xtc -s 12 -e 15 <infile >outfile
*SALES PITCH ON* For those of you who write programs for more than one
system: wouldn't it be nice to create handy tools like this once, and
not have to modify the @%#^& out of them when they get moved to another
system? For those of you who use only one system: don't you find it
annoying when a neat tool someone gave you works great, but expects you
to enter a command line using syntax that is nothing like the tools
already on your system? *SALES PITCH OFF*
In any case, what I would like is some additional information that is
not *explicitly* stated in the big orange books. For example, what is
the full syntax for the DCL command line. (A BNF of it would be
*wonderful*!) I've pieced together most of it (at least the parts I'm
concerned with) and have learned a great deal empirically. Just the
same, it would be nice to get the straight poop on what DCL *really*
does. Also, I am curious about current work in progress that Digital
may be engaged in with any other (current,future) CLIs. Obviously I'm
*not* expecting Digital to give away trade secrets here, but there is a
chance that there may be some internal documentation that is not
"sensitive" in nature that would be OK for me to look at. (Hey, it's
worth a shot...)
I know I could go the usual route through corporate head quarters, and
am ready to do that if and when I have to. However, such 'cold'
contacts usually don't get very far. [I can see the reply now: "Dear
Sir; Thank you for your interest in Digital Equipment..."] Almost any
name to start things rolling is better than my sending a blind 'dear
sir'. Any 'inside' info that can be offered by you, gentle reader,
would be muchly appreciated. I won't even tell them it was you that
fingered 'em! :-)
Thanks in advance...BC
PS - Flames, comments, questions or suggestions about my thesis topic
are *very* welcome. But please send them directly to me rather than
further bore the net with such ramblings....
## ## ## ## +-------------------------------------------------------+
## ### ## ## ! Bill Costa PHONE: (603) 862-3056 !
## #### ## ## ! University Computing BITNET: W_COSTA@UNHH !
## ## ## ######## ! Kingsbury Hall !
## ## #### ## ! Durham, NH 03824 !
## ## ### ## ! USA <Insert Standard Disclaimer Here> !
####### ## ## +-------------------------------------------------------+