[jamming] Majam - keeping jam up-to-date

[Tim Sneddon]

David Turner [mailto:dturner at nds.com] wrote:
> Regarding MacOS, Jam was never used to drive the build 
> anyway, all it did was output a list of commands that had to 
> be run with another tool (CodeWarrior or MPW ?). I'm pretty 
> certain that very few users of this feature exist, so 
> dropping MacOS support shouldn't be a problem.
> 
> Regarding VMS, maybe there is a way to still specify paths in 
> the Jamfiles with the 'standard' ".", ".." and "/" 
> separators, and translating them on the go into the 
> corresponding VMS-ims (kind of like when you translate "/" into "\"
> for Windows paths)

There are facilities for this. DEC/Compaq/HP C comes with the routines
decc$to_vms(), decc$from_vms() and decc$translate_vms() that handle
converting between the two file specification formats. 

> 
> this would allow for simpler Jamfiles while still supporting 
> the platform.

I can understand this. I've used it also. Making everything inside
the application use UN*X style and then all input and output is
converted to and from the host format.

> 
> However, devil is in the details. Anyone has a good web pages 
> explaining the delicacies of VMS file systems without too 
> much head scratching ?

The OpenVMS Documentation is the best place to look this up. That
can be found here:

    http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/os83_index.html 

Specifically the manual you want is the "Guide to OpenVMS File
Applications" which is here: 

    http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/731FINAL/4506/4506PRO.HTML 

Chapters 5 and 6 concern file specifications, how they are
constructed and how they are parsed.

You might also find something useful in the OpenVMS FAQ at:

    http://h71000.www7.hp.com/faq/vmsfaq.html. 

The C Run-Time Library reference for the functions I mentioned 
Regarding converting between UN*X and OpenVMS file specifications
can be found here: 

    http://h71000.www7.hp.com/commercial/c/docs/5763pro.html

I see someone else has already posted a link to David J. Dachtera's site. 

> Is there any specific reason why this wouldn't be practical 
> for VMS users ?
> 

My only concern is that the user will need to write their Jamfiles
using UN*X syntax. This is something I *don't* like. One of the
things I like about VMS is it's file specification mechanism. It
can be a little scary at first, but it is uniform, complete and very
usable. I would imagine that most VMS users would see using UN*X file
specifications as a backward step.

As long as file specs are output and input in their native format it's
not a problem to operate on UN*X specs internally. Of course, not that
it would probably cause much hassle it should be noted that VMS also
supports file version numbers.

I would be happy to answer any questions, or help if I can with any
VMS related questions/issues/etc.

Regards, Tim.