Copyright 1990-2016 by Kevin G. Barkes All rights reserved. This article may be duplicated or redistributed provided no alterations of any kind are made to this file. This edition of DCL Dialogue is sponsored by Networking Dynamics, developers and marketers of productivity software for OpenVMS systems. Contact our website www.networkingdynamics.com to download free demos of our software and see how you will save time, money and raise productivity! Be sure to mention DCL Dialogue! DCL DIALOGUE Originally published July, 1990 By Kevin G. Barkes DCL Trivia In some respects, writing this column is akin to begin a gunslinger in the old West. Every time I go to a DECUS symposia or similar event, there's always some DCL guru lurking there, ready to ambush me in front of an appreciative crowd. I guess I ask for trouble. Fellow speakers tell me they structure their talks so there's no time for questions and answers at the end, thereby eliminating the possibility of wholesale humiliation. I try to leave a few minutes to clear up any ambiguities caused by my rambling delivery and general mental fuzziness. And it never fails that a nondescript type fella shuffles up to the mike and asks something like, "What's the maximum number of characters permitted in a DCL command line after symbol and lexical expansion?" This guy won't accept "more than you could possibly imagine" as an answer. He smirks, says "One Thousand Twenty-Four", and disappears back into the snickering crowd as my self-esteem, reputation and breakfast depart ignominiously. Suppressing an urge to shout "get a life!" to my faceless tormentor, I return to the dark hotel room and watch the days' events calendar scroll silently by on the tv screen. In self-defense, I've developed a cheat sheet that contains a good number of DCL trivia answers. Aside from protecting my tuchas at DECUS symposia, it's also been helpful in routine operations. DCL INTEGRAL COMMAND INTERPRETER - number of characters in verbs and qualifiers examined by CLI = 4. (Keywords read in entirety.) - minimum abbreviation permitted for verbs and qualifiers = 1 (assuming truncation is unique). Exceptions: CONTINUE, DEPOSIT, EXAMINE and RUN can be truncated to 1 character even though the truncation is not unique. COMMAND PROCEDURES - maximum number of parameters which can be passed to a command procedure = 8 (P1...P8). - maximum depth of nested command procedures = 32 (including the top-level procedure). COMMAND STRING - maximum number of characters after symbol and lexical expansion = 1024. - maximum number of characters permitted without using hyphen (command string extension) = 256. - maximum number of characters permitted per element = 255. - maximum number of elements permitted = 128. FILE SPECIFICATIONS - maximum size for full file spec, including delimiters = 255. - maximum size for node name = 6. - maximum size for optional access control string used with node name = 42. - maximum size for device name, including controller and unit number = 15. - maximum size for file name = 39. - minimum size for file name = 0 (null). - maximum size for file type = 39. - minimum size for file type = 0 (null). - maximum version number = 32767. - maximum size for directory name = 39. FORMS - maximum number of characters in form name = 31. - range of permissible form numbers = 0 to 999. - maximum number of characters in form description = 255. - range of permissible form length values = 1 to 255. - maximum number of characters in stock name = 31. - range of permissible form width values = 1 to 65535. LABEL NAMES - maximum characters = 255. LOGICAL NAMES - maximum characters = 255 (31 for table names entered in LNM$PROCESS_DIRECTORY or LNM$SYSTEM_DIRECTORY) - maximum size for logical node name = 15. PASSWORD - maximum characters in password = 31. PRINT (see also QUEUES) - range of allowable values to /COPIES qualififer = 1 to 255. - range of allowable values to /JOB_COUNT qualifier = 1 to 255. - maximum characters for /NAME qualifer = 39. - maximum characters for /NOTE qualifer = 255. - maximum characters for /OPERATOR qualifier = 255. PROCESS NAMES - maximum characters in process name = 15. PROMPT - maximum size of prompt string = 32. QUEUES - range of permissible process priorities with /BASE_PRIORITY= qualifier = 0 to 15. - maximum number of characters for queue name = 31. - maximum number of concurrent jobs per queue (/JOB_LIMIT qualifier) = 255. - maximum number of parameters for /PARAMETER qualifier = 8. (maximum characters for each parameter = 255; total permissible length of all 8 parameters = 480.) - range of allowable values to /PRIORITY qualifier = 0 to 255. - range of pages which can be printed with START/QUEUE/ALIGN = 1 to 20. - maximum number of characters permitted START/QUEUE/SEARCH string = 63. - range of buffers permissible with START/QUEUE/MANAGER/BUFFERS command = 0 through 127. - range of blocks permissible with START/QUEUE/MANAGER /EXTEND_QUANTITY command = 10 to 65535. RECALL - range of permissible RECALL command specifiers = 1 to 20. - size of RECALL buffer = 1025 characters - maximum number of characters which can be read from a RECALL command = 255. REPLY/REQUEST - maximum size of message text = 128 characters. SYMBOLS - minimum size for symbol name = 1. - maximum size for symbol name = 255. - range of permissible integers in substring replacement (symbol[x,y] := string) = 0 to 768 (x+y must =< 769). - maximum permissible size of arithmetic overlay = 32. - maximum permissible size of evaluated string expression without /SYMBOL qualifier on WRITE command = 1024. - maximum permissible size of evaluated string expression with /SYMBOL qualifier on WRITE command = 2048. UICs - numeric group number range = 0 to 37776 octal. - numeric member number range = 0 to 177776 octal. - (named format) maximum characters in group name = 31. - (named format) maximum characters in member name = 31. VOLUME NAMES - maximum characters for disk volume name = 12. - maximum characters for tape volume name = 6. - alternate maximum size for ANSI-labelled mag tape = 15 (14 for owner identifier field, 1 for volume accessibility field). Since some of these values changed between versions 4 and 5 of VMS, it may be possible for you to catch your resident guru in a DCL gaffe. ---------- Kevin G. Barkes is an independent consultant. He publishes the KGB Report newsletter, operates the www.kgbreport.com website, lurks on comp.os.vms, and can be reached at kgbarkes@gmail.com.