Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!CITHEX.CALTECH.EDU!carl
From: carl@CITHEX.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Unix/VMS "wars" & Machine MIPS "ratings"
Message-ID: <880327232216.95d@CitHex.Caltech.Edu>
Date: 28 Mar 88 07:28:32 GMT
References: <7@nmtsun.nmt.edu>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 33


 > >The VMS "delete" command has some serious flaws.  It can't recursively
 > >delete a directory subtree.  It will also blindly delete a file even if
 > >it has multiple directory entries for it, thus invalidating them with
 > >no warning to the user.  (This is really a VMS file system problem.)
 > How many times does this happen.  VMS does not really support file that have
 > more than one link.  Are you saying that if I print a file then delete it,
 > before it has a change to clear the queue, I end up with garbage on the disk?
 > I don't think so.

Not only does VMS "really support" files that have multiple links, some
of their layered products REQUIRE them (for example, if you're running VAX-11
RSX, you'll find that the files SYSEXE.DIR;1, SYSLIB.DIR;1, and SYSHLP.DIR;1
[I think these are the three] in SYS$SYSROOT: all have multiple links).
What does your question about printing a file have to do with the question?
Nothing, as far as I can see.

 > >Also, "delete" simply aborts with an error if the file that the user
 > >wanted to delete is write-protected, instead of allowing the user to
 >                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is wrong.  I just delete a file
 > that had delete permission, but no write permission.
 > >override the protection as the UNIX "rm" command does.
 > 
 > The VMS delete command WILL allow a user to delete the file if the file
 > has DELETE protection for the file.  If you don't have delete permission,
 > then you can't delete the file at all.  Period.  That's the way VMS works.
 > It is for security reasons.

The appropriate comparison is that "rm" lets you override the file protection
IF YOU HAVE THE PRIVILEGE TO OVERRIDE IT in the middle of the execution
of the command.  Under VMS, you can change the protection of the file IF
YOU HAVE THE PRIVILEGE TO CHANGE IT, then use DELETE again;  however, you
can't do this as part of the DELETE command.