It appears that the VMS specific file name behavior is tied to many perl scripts that are checking the ^O for 'VMS'.
What I would like to investigate is having a option where a symbol or logical name could be used by the init and pre-init code in VMS.C to change the ^O to report 'GNV'. That same feature would also cause the DECC feature settings to go to full UNIX/POSIX filename compatibility mode. In investigating why the first standard test for symlinks on perl was failing, it turns out that the fast_abs_path() and abs_path() call VMS specific code including using rms calls to return the path. This existing code does not know how to follow a symbolic link to the real path, and since other code calls those same routines that should not return a real path, but the link value, a new routine would be needed for the abs_path routines to use. Alternatively, symbolic links virtually require UNIX/POSIX path names to function, which means that they are most likely only to be used in a full POSIX environment. It looks like when Perl does not recognize the value of ^O, it defaults to POSIX/UNIX behavior on file handling. I have not found out yet how to read or change the value of ^O from C, as it seems to only be set by config.pm, and I am not sure if config.pm is used after Perl is built. If anyone has any suggestions on an easy way to do this, please let me know. Thanks, -John [EMAIL PROTECTED] Personal Opinion Only
