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From: info-vax@ucbvax.ARPA
Newsgroups: fa.info-vax
Subject: Re:  VMS RMS
Message-ID: <5887@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 29-Mar-85 14:10:03 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.5887
Posted: Fri Mar 29 14:10:03 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Mar-85 01:35:41 EST
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Organization: University of California at Berkeley
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From: geacc022%timevx@cit-hamlet.arpa

>>Is there a way to tell VMS to treat normal SYS$INPUT, SYS$OUTPUT and
>>SYS$ERROR as one character block sequential device so that a $GET
>>and a $PUT of one character gets the character(s) typed and does not
>>wait until EOL or control characters are typed.

>Use "QIO" instead of "QIOW".  It will stop reading when enough characters
>have been read.

Wrong!	 $QIO  waits  for  no man -- it returns immediately after
queueing  the  I/O  request.   (It's  used  for  asyncronous I/O;
presumably you use an event flag or a nASTy routine to detect I/O
completion.)  $QIOW is simply a $QIO followed by a $WAITFR.

You  can get RMS to do this, but not with the $GET service -- you
must  use  the $READ service (specifying the BIO bit in the FAB's
FAC  and the RAB's ROP).  Specify that you have a one-byte buffer
and  things will work.	The RNE and RNF bits in the ROP field are
ignored, but you say the terminal is already set /NOECHO/PASSALL,
so that's OK.  (RNE = read no echo; RNF = read no filter).

When I looked at how our library here does it, we use $QIOWs with
the  terminator set set to -1's (every character is end of line).
It can also be done by reading into a 1-byte buffer.

Caveat:  We're	still  running	VMS 3.6 here; but I can't imagine
things	have changed all that much for V4.  (although I hope they
fixed it so the RNE/RNF bits are processed by $READ).

			Gary Ansok
			GEACC022%TIMEVX @ HAMLET
			GEA @ CALTECH.BITNET
			...ucbvax!cithep!timevx#geacc022

"All the world loves a straight man."