Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!hc!beta!unm-la!unmvax!nmtsun!hydrovax
From: hydrovax@nmtsun.nmt.edu (M. Warner Losh)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Unix 'ish file link on vms
Message-ID: <1289@nmtsun.nmt.edu>
Date: 31 Jan 88 01:53:25 GMT
References: <39f762da.8784@apollo.uucp>
Distribution: comp.sys.dec
Organization: NMT Hydrology program
Lines: 37
Summary: An discouraged way of doing this.

In article <39f762da.8784@apollo.uucp>, lee_d@apollo.uucp (David Lee) writes:
> 
>     Is there a way to implement a unix file link
> on vms?  What I want done is to have two filenames
> both pointing to the same file on disk.
RTFM,  Well, I shouldn't be so gung ho about this, but it IS in the
DCL DICTIONARY, pp DCL-442 - DCL-446 (Version 4.4 of VMS).

$ SET FILE/ENTER=File2.txt file2.txt

will "link" file2.txt and file1.txt together.

Quoted from Pg DCL-443 of the above manual

/ENTER=new-file-spec
Enables you to assign an additional name to a file.  The file now has a
second name, or alias, but both the original name and the alias reference the
same file.  For this reason, care should be taken when deleting files which
have aliases.  In order to keep the file but remove one of its names, use the
/REMOVE qualifier with SET FILE.

No wildcards are allowed in the file specification.

User of the /ENTER qualifier is discouraged.

End of Quoted material.

This facility appears to be around for the PRINT command and all of the
machinery that goes with it.  Beyond that, I don't know how it is used.
I tried using it for a while, but got burned when I accidentally deleted
one of the file references....(ANAL/DISK IS WONDERFUL ....)

Hope that this helps your problem.
-- 
bitnet:	losh@nmt.csnet			M. Warner Losh
	warner@hydrovax.nmt.csnet    ! Don't know if this works, let me know.
csnet:	warner@hydrovax.nmt.edu
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