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What's Up DOCumentation
Robelle Consulting Ltd.
8648 Armstrong Rd., R.R.#6
Langley, B.C. Canada V3A 4P9
Telephone: (604) 888-3666
Fax: (604) 888-7731
Date: September 8, 1989
From: Robert M. Green, President
David J. Greer, Research & Development
Michael C. Shumko, Customer Support
To: Users of Robelle Software
Re: News of the HP 3000, 1989 #7
What You Will Find in This News Memo:
News Tidbits
Ten Programs Compete for $2500 Award
Technical Tips
About Robelle
Linking PowerHouse with QEDIT, Part II
Robelle Products: Problems, Solutions, and Suggestions
News Tidbits
700/92 Firmware Lockup. A user site recently had a firmware lockup on a
700/92 terminal. The screen displayed `Port 1 Error 1', the keyboard did not
respond, and switching the machine off and on did not change the situation.
A call to HP resulted in having them hold down the `d' key (for `default')
while powering up the terminal. The terminal then resumed normal operation.
Another fix would be to remove the battery from the terminal. This operation
apparently requires thirteen paper clips to hold some piece in alignment
while the battery is removed and re-inserted. Not for the faint of heart.
Another weird thing has been happening on their 700/92. After a power fail,
the RETURN key is sometimes stuck ON. They'll come in to work and see
columns of colons marching off the top of the screen.
Little-Known Forms of Address.
Senator: Your Platitude Representative: Your Ineptitude
Earl: Your Earliness Basketball player: Your Altitude
Viscount: Your Viscosity Duke of Earl: Oh wo-wo-o yi-yi-yi-i-i
:SHOWOUT # Does Not Work on MPE XL. We mentioned that SHOWOUT # would show
the spoofles for all jobs and sessions, but that is only true for MPE V, not
MPE XL.
Ten Programs Compete for $2500 Award
INTEREX and ROBELLE held a contest this year for the best new contribution to
the HP 3000 library. Robelle Consulting Ltd. is putting up a prize of $2500
for the winner, who will be selected by Bob Green, President of Robelle, from
among ten finalist programs selected by the INTEREX library committee.
The criterion for success in this contest is: "most incremental value to the
HP 3000 installed base." Factors that will be considered in determining the
winner include "new functionality provided by the program, generality of
appeal, reliability, quality of documentation, and installation ease." These
are the ten contributions that made the cut:
CURVPLOT Plots x,y data on graphics terminals and plotters.
by Jobst Brandt, Hewlett-Packard Labs
FQ Fast-Query report writer.
by David Hurst, Reliance Electric Company
LIBUTIL Stores many MPE files in one file (i.e., a library).
by Mats Halvarsson, Sweden
MAIL Electronic mail system.
by Gary Dietz and Kevin Kelly of Whitman College, Washington
FORMPEEK "Peek" into VPLUS forms files and fast forms files.
by Otis Whitehurst, Vermont Housing Finance Agency
NULLITEM Finds and fixes IMAGE <null items> (i.e., binary zero).
by Charles Glenn, Germantown, Maryland
ENFORCER Forces password changes and validates access to ports.
by Gary Dietz and Kevin Kelly of Whitman College, Washington
PASSUTIL Ages user passwords and forces password changes.
by David Hurst, Reliance Electric Company (rewrite)
SPELLCK Spelling checker with dictionary.
by Brent Davis, E-Systems, Salt Lake City
HPFUTIL File inquire/update utility for MPE/KSAM/IMAGE.
by John Archer, General Tire Co., Akron, Ohio
These are all high-quality programs and will be extremely valuable to many HP
3000 users. Release F0 of the contributed library, which is being
distributed now, contains all ten finalists, plus many other new
contributions. Installation members of INTEREX receive a copy of the library
on magnetic tape as part of their yearly membership fee ($400 per year).
The winner will be announced on Monday night during the Robelle "harbor
cruise" party and the award will be presented Thursday, just before the
Hewlett-Packard Management Roundtable.
Technical Tips
Invalid Numeric Digits. Recent issues of the Oklahoma Users Group Newsletter
have contained entertaining articles on writing a program to find invalid
packed-decimal (COMP-3) fields. First Colin Schmidt published a COBOL
program to check fields, then David Kingsella took the program apart in print
and put it back together, and Colin replied to the criticisms. Finally,
David Kingsella noted "Having done all of that, I turned to page 8-18 of the
new COBOL-II Reference Manual and discovered that you can use the `IF
NUMERIC' class test on a packed numeric field, thus eliminating our need to
code a subroutine to accomplish this feat." We must remember to read our user
manuals more often.
Linking PowerHouse with QEDIT, Part II
Last issue we discussed how PowerHouse is accessed on the HP 3000 and
how best to access the QUIZ module from QEDIT. This issue we go on to
QDD, QDESIGN, QUICK, and QTP. The QUIZ UDC last issue would be better
if it had a FILE equation for the source file, as shown below in the
UDCs for QDD, QDESIGN, and QTP.
"No Data Dictionary": QSCHEMA and QDD
When you run any PowerHouse tool, it expects to find a data dictionary (i.e.,
the QSCHEMAC file or DICT/3000). You create a binary QSCHEMAC file (code is
640) from a source file using the QDD program. In this example, schema is
the dictionary source file:
:run qedit.pub.robelle
/set udc phudc.catalog.robelle
/open schema
/QDD *
Here is the QDD UDC from PHUDC, modified for QEDIT:
QDD source,info=" ",vers=current
comment PowerHouse 5.01
file qsource=!source
file coghelp=coghelp.!vers.cognos
file coghlib=coghlib.!vers.cognos
file cogmpe=cogmpe.!vers.cognos
run qdd.!vers.cognos;info="auto=qsource udc=$catalog &
suspend !info"
reset qsource
reset cogsort
reset coghelp
reset cogmpe
****
When running other PowerHouse modules, there are three ways to point to the
data dictionary:
1. :FILE QSCHEMAC = xxxx
You could add this MPE command to each UDC. But because this method is not
portable to non-HP computers, Cognos may be phasing :FILE commands out over
time. We suggest method 2 or 3 instead.
2. :RUN quiz;INFO = "DICT=xxxx"
This method works on all platforms and makes sense when you have only one
dictionary. If you are planning to do more than one application, you will
probably end up with several dictionaries, since that simplifies maintenance.
In this case, use method 3.
3. >SET DICT xxxx
This command appears in the source code of each PowerHouse program. This is
the best method when you can't point to a unique dictionary in the UDC.
Quick
QUICK, the PowerHouse screen-handler, is composed of two programs: QDESIGN
to translate a screen-layout source file into a binary screen file, and QUICK
to execute the screen file. Only the original source file can be a QEDIT
file, so there is no need to add AUTO=!SOURCE to the QUICK UDC, only to the
QDESIGN UDC. Once you have compiled a screen, the GO command in QDESIGN will
invoke QUICK to test it.
Here are the UDCs for QDESIGN and QUICK, modified for use inside QEDIT (the
changes are underlined):
QDESIGN source,info=" ", vers=current
comment UDC to compile Quick 5.01 screens
comment The source file may be a QEDIT file.
file qsource=!source
file quick=quick.!vers.cognos
file qshow=qshow.!vers.cognos
file qcoblib=qcoblib.!vers.cognos
file coghelp=coghelp.!vers.cognos
file coghlib=coghlib.!vers.cognos
file cogmpe=cogmpe.!vers.cognos
run qdesign.!vers.cognos;info="auto=qsource udc=$catalog &
suspend !info"
reset qsource
reset quick
reset qshow
reset qcoblib
reset coghelp
reset coghlib
reset cogmpe
****
QUICK info=" ",vers=current
comment UDC to execute a 5.01 Quick screen or application
comment There are no QEDIT input files here!
file cogmpe=cogmpe.!vers.cognos
run quick.!vers.cognos;info="udc=$catalog suspend !info"
reset cogmpe
****
These UDCs are from version 5.01. For 5.06, an extra FILE equation is needed
to specify QEDIT as the COGEDITR.
Remember, QUICK accepts compiled screens, which have a file code of 641. It
does not accept raw screens in QEDIT format. QUICK also accepts run-time
parameter files, called "QKGO files". These are binary files with the code
650; they tell QUICK which screen to start with and what options to use.
These cannot be QEDIT files either, although they can be passed in as targets
of the AUTO= parameter in the QUICK UDC.
QTP
QTP is the volume transaction processor of PowerHouse. The language is like
QUIZ, but supports updates also. Here is the QTP UDC from PHUDC, modified
for use from QEDIT:
QTP source,info=" ",vers=current
comment PowerHouse 5.01, accepts QEDIT source file
file qsource=!source
file qshow=qshow.!vers.cognos
file qcoblib=qcoblib.!vers.cognos
file cogsort=cogsort.!vers.cognos
file coghelp=coghelp.!vers.cognos
file coghlib=coghlib.!vers.cognos
file cogmpe=cogmpe.!vers.cognos
run qtp.!vers.cognos;info="auto=qsource udc=$catalog &
suspend !info"
reset qsource
reset qshow
reset qcoblib
reset cogsort
reset coghelp
reset coghlib
reset cogmpe
***
[Next issue: Native-Mode PowerHouse and other useful tips.]
Robelle Products: Problems, Solutions, and Suggestions
New Versions of MPE
Reminder. When you receive a new version of MPE from HP, you get new
versions of the HP compilers and of the system SL. You may need to
`re-qedify' your compilers or re-install Speed Demon or SUPRTOOL2 into the
system SL.
Qedifying the Compilers. If you compile Qedit files (filecode = 111) or
compile the currently-texted file (:compile *), you will need to re-qedify
the HP compilers. This is done by streaming one of two jobs. Which one
needs to be streamed depends on where you keep the qedified compilers. If
:LISTF @.Q.ROBELLE shows some compilers (e.g., COBOLII, SPL, FTN, etc.), then
stream QEDITJ1A.JOB.ROBELLE (isolated installation). If the :LISTF shows
only QEDIFY and QPUSL, then stream QEDITJ1.JOB.ROBELLE (integrated
installation). See the QEDIT Installation Manual for details on integrated
versus isolated. This doesn't apply to Native Mode compilers on MPE XL. NM
compilers cannot be qedified.
Speed Demon. If programs suddenly start giving unresolved external
references for SPDEDBINIT, SPDESCAN, SPDESHUT, SPDEERROR, or SPDEEXPLAIN, you
need to re-install Speed Demon into the system SL. Stream DEMON.JOB.ROBELLE.
SUPRTOOL2. If programs start getting unresolved external references for
SUPRTOOL2, stream SUPR2JOB.JOB.ROBELLE. This re-installs SUPRTOOL2 into the
system SL.
New Cold Load Tapes. If you use QEDITJ1, DEMON, or SUPR2JOB jobs, you will
have to create a new cold load tape. This is because these jobs make changes
to the system SL, changes that would be lost with the next cold load, unless
the changes are saved on a new cold load tape. You don't have to make the
cold load tape right away; you can wait until the users have gone home. And
if you stream more than one of these jobs, you can wait until after the last
one to make the cold load tape.
SUPRTOOL Version 3.1.1 and 3.1.2
Adjust Batch Jobs for Holidays. In automating production batch jobs, it
would be very nice to know, at the MPE command level, whether today is a
holiday (or yesterday or tomorrow). You can do if hpday = 1 then to check
for Sunday, but you can't do if hpday = holiday then. Everyone has his own
schedule of holidays. Here is how we cope with this problem in our backup
job, using SUPRTOOL to compare yesterday's date to a list of holidays for the
year:
!comment Occasionally the backup is not run. This is usually
!comment because of holidays, when nobody is in the office.
!comment There is a file, SKIPDAYS.STREAMS.PROD, which
!comment contains a list of dates in YYMMDD Ascii format.
!comment Because the backup runs after midnight, it checks if
!comment YESTERDAY's date is in the file. If it is, the JCW
!comment SKIPTODAY is set to 1 (done using the SUPRTOOLOUTCOUNT
!comment JCW, which has how many records SUPRTOOL selected).
! run suprtool.pub.robelle
input skipdays.streams.prod; out $null
define skipdate,1,6
item skipdate,date,yymmdd
if skipdate = $today(-1)
exit
! setjcw skiptoday = suprtooloutcount
!if skiptoday > 0 then
! tellop YESTERDAY WAS A HOLIDAY.
! tellop NO PARTIAL BACKUP TODAY.
!else
! comment Insert the BACKUP commands here:
! comment STORE, etc.
!endif
The skipdays file is a regular 80-byte file with records in the following
format:
----+----1----+----2----+----3----+----4
890102 Monday after New Years day
890327 Easter Monday
890522 Victoria Day (Canada)
890603 Canada Day
890807 Civic Holiday (B.C.)
890904 Labour Day
891009 Thanksgiving (Canada)
891225 Christmas Day
891226 Boxing Day (Canada)
QEDIT Version 3.7 and 3.7.1
:REFLECT Commands from Batch Mode. The :REFLECT pseudo-MPE command in Qedit
allows you to execute Reflection commands from UDCs, command files, and use
files. This is also supposed to work from a batch job, but does not. A
pre-release version of Qedit is available which corrects this problem.
FTN A.02.00 Patch. A user has passed on this patch to fix a problem where
the Qedified Fortran 77 compiler goes into a loop. It appears to this user
as if HP has fixed the temporary file problem in this release:
:hello manager.sys
:run patch.pub.sys
File? FTN.PUB.SYS
?M,32,10132
051404,140050
DBAUDIT Version 1.9
Pagelength Is Wrong. Version 1.9 of DBAUDIT has a bug that causes page
breaks to occur at the wrong place. This problem has been fixed in version
1.9.1 of DBAUDIT. Here are two workarounds to the problem in 1.9:
Set Pagenumbers Off Drop page breaks in the "Body", or
:Run Auditold.Pub.Robelle Use version 1.8 of DBAUDIT.
Version 1.8 is very similar to version 1.9, except that it is missing the new
EXTRACT command. Since EXTRACT is used to generate standard MPE files,
rather than reports, you can use version 1.9 for EXTRACT. If this causes you
any grief, contact our office about getting a copy of DBAUDIT 1.9.1.
QLIB Version 5.2
A frequent question in technical support is "Does such and such from the QLIB
work on MPE XL?" Here is the current status:
MPE-Only XL-Only Either MPE
cmswitch x
cookie x
dbcheck2 x
deskqed x
equater x
filerpt x
howmessy x
netxfer x
nicepmap x
prose x
pscreen x
qcopy x
qhelp x
routines x
select x
sue x
tapedir x
tdbcheck x
*c1950a250b10g2P
Fortune Cookie of the Month
Don't ever let a machine know you're in a hurry.