Peter Prymmer wrote:
"Craig A. Berry" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 10/01/2007 09:21:18 PM:
We could consider an option to have all updates to %ENV done as
user-mode logical names where the automatic destruction on image
run-down would more or less correspond to what happens on other
platforms. Can't say it's high on my priority list, though.
Unfortunately, I know of a large amount of perl scripting for
VMS that relies on the persistance of $ENV{'FOO'} assignments
to last outside the perl.exe image wind down and the wrappering
DCL expects to find useful information in the f$trlnm("FOO")
return value. Such scripts would silently break if user mode
became the default and we upgraded perl.
I doubt that it could ever the default to decouple logical names from
%ENV when Perl is run from DCL or detached. Of course I do not know if
Perl will run detached.
When Perl in run from a UNIX style shell like GNV Bash on VMS, the %ENV
hash and other things will need to behave like it does on UNIX though.
When such unix-isms creep their way toward vmsperl I have often
asked "Why not write a VMS::*bar* module to allow folks to
try it out *bar* first optionally?". In this case I will not
only re-raise that question but point out that as recently
as this afternoon when I went looking for VMS::Logical on
CPAN I did not find it there. So how about adding
VMS::Logical to the core perl distribution just like
was done with VMS::Stdio many years ago? The
functionality of a well maintained VMS::Logical
extension (read;write;user-,exec-,super-modes, etc.)
is so often requested that I'd think it would make a
valuable contribution to the core irrespective of
possible future changes to the %ENV hash handling.
I think that Carl Friedberg gave me a copy of a logical name module that
he had started. I have not had time to look at it.
But yes, routines for handling logical names are needed, and once they
are in place, then a search and fix mission is needed to at least make
sure that nothing in core is using %ENV to operate on VMS logical names,
and the documentation updated to warn people not to use %ENV that way
and point them to the new routines.
Again, my current priority is to get everything I can passing in blead,
and then get the symbolic link stuff working in the default mode, and
then get back to getting the ODS-5 filename support working.
If and when I get to GNV bash integration step is where I would be
working on putting in the logical name support if someone else has not
gotten to it.
-John
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Personal Opinion Only
