[comp.os.vms] VMS Bug?!?

oberman@LLL-ICDC.ARPA ("Oberman, Kevin") (06/21/87)

>On VAX/VMS 4.5, I discovered this (when I was really paying attention):
>
>$ SHOW LOGICAL FOO
>%SHOW-S-NOTRAN, no translation for logical name FOO
>
>I hardly think that was "sucessful;" more like it should be "%SHOW-W-NOTRAN"...
>
>What do you think?  Should I get our university to SPR it or does somebody in
>net/newsgroupland know if SHOW.EXE has been fixed, and we never got it?
>
>I had to quickly check another machine in the cluster to see that it was there,
>too...

While I don't class it as a bug, I do agree it should be a WARNING. It is
successful in the sense that the no error occured in the translation process.
There was simply no translation found.

This is akin to SEARCH not finding a string. In an earlier version a -S-
message was returned even if the string was not found. The search completed
with no errors, after all. It's now been changed to a -W-. I find it much
better as I can now check the $SEVERITY instead of $STATUS in command
proceedures. I can also branch on a warning without decoding the full returned
value.

					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.

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