Test suite for SEARCH

[ferdinand.bolh...@wien.gv.at]

I wrote an utility similar to SEARCH which accepts - by using Philip Hazel's PCRE library (http://www.pcre.org) - regular expressions as search patterns. It also provides a replace facility, allowing to replace matches by other strings (which can reference (parts of) the matches).

I want to ensure that - beside these additional Features - the utility (I called it REGSEARCH) behaves exactly as SEARCH (with VMS V8.4). So is there a test Suite to verify this? I think of a table with two colomns - the first contains a SEARCH command, the second the expected result. But I will appreciate any other hint too.

[Ian Miller]

sounds like you have remade the FIND utility

[ferdinand.bolh...@wien.gv.at]

Do you have any Information about this Utility?

I googled "VMS FIND Utility" and "VMS FIND Tool" but wasn't able to find somewhat.

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 4/5/2019 6:31 AM, ferdinand.bolh...@wien.gv.at wrote:
> Do you have any Information about this Utility?
>
> I googled "VMS FIND Utility" and "VMS FIND Tool" but wasn't able to find somewhat.

Maybe this one:

http://vms.process.com/scripts/fileserv/fileserv.com?FIND

Arne

[bill...@navistar.com]

On Friday, April 5, 2019 at 5:31:02 AM UTC-5, ferdinand.bol...@wien.gv.at wrote:
> Do you have any Information about this Utility?
>
> I googled "VMS FIND Utility" and "VMS FIND Tool" but wasn't able to find somewhat.

I think Ian is referring to the freeware FIND V1.5 that adds DCL verbs FIND/FIND and FIND/REPLACE. http://www.decuslib.com/freeware/freewarev70/find/

The PCSI kit includes a post-install script that attempts to send an email to walter.braeu at hp.com, so I have assumed that Walter wrote it or was maintainer in 2004. I think it ranks up there with DFU as one of the top utilities that should be installed on every system. Actually, they probably should be included in the VMS distribution kit.

[Ian Miller]

yes, that's the one.

[Walter Braeu]

> The PCSI kit includes a post-install script that attempts to send an email to walter.braeu at hp.com, so I have assumed that Walter wrote it or was maintainer in 2004.

I wrote it. I am not working for HP[E] anymore, so those mails will bounce. I currently do have access to OpenVMS systems, but only IA64. So I don't know if or when I will have a chance to port FIND to X64.

I never tested compatibility with SEARCH (but looked at the sources), so I only have a test suite for the search algorithms.

[Walter Braeu]

Hello,
https://vmssoftware.com/community/freeware/ now has version 1.6 of FIND.
The PCSI kit is installable on Alpha, Integrity and x86.
It now has support for Perl regular expressions (PCRE), ODS5 and the highlight qualifier now supports colors.

[Ian Miller]

FIND V1.6 requires OpenVMS Alpha V8.4-2, OpenVMS I64 V8.4-2 or OpenVMS X86-64 V9.2.

[walter....@gmail.com]

Since I will retire sometimes this year, I will probably loose access to OpenVMS systems.
If anybody is willing to take over maintenance of FIND/REPLACE, please contact me.

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 3/1/2023 1:34 AM, walter....@gmail.com wrote:
> Since I will retire sometimes this year, I will probably loose access to OpenVMS systems.
> If anybody is willing to take over maintenance of FIND/REPLACE, please contact me.

You could continue with VMS as a hobbyist (VSI Community License).

Arne

[Jan-Erik Söderholm]

Maybe "I will probably loose access to" was just a nicer
way to say "I will probably loose interest in"...

:-)

If/when I retire I'm not at all sure that I want to
continue as a VMS hobbyist...

[Simon Clubley]

Well, some people _still_ like to play with PDP-11 systems... :-)

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 3/1/2023 9:00 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2023-03-01 kl. 13:34, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
>> On 3/1/2023 1:34 AM, walter....@gmail.com wrote:
>>> Since I will retire sometimes this year, I will probably loose access
>>> to OpenVMS systems.
>>> If anybody is willing to take over maintenance of FIND/REPLACE,
>>> please contact me.
>>
>> You could continue with VMS as a hobbyist (VSI Community License).
>>
>> Arne
>>
>
> Maybe "I will probably loose access to" was just a nicer
> way to say "I will probably loose interest in"...
>
> :-)

What? Impossible!

:-)

> If/when I retire I'm not at all sure that I want to
> continue as a VMS hobbyist...

Didn't someone tell you that joining comp.os.vms was
life without possibility of parole.

:-)

Arne

[bill]

Even when I was in academia the people I worked with were utterly
amazed that after spending the day working with computers I would
go home and spend my free time working with computers.

We are a rapidly dying breed.

bill

[Robert A. Brooks]

On 3/1/2023 1:34 AM, walter....@gmail.com wrote:

> Since I will retire sometimes this year, I will probably loose access to OpenVMS systems.
> If anybody is willing to take over maintenance of FIND/REPLACE, please contact me.

In addition to FIND/REPLACE, among Walter's contributions to VMS during his time
at DEC/CPQ/HP is the rewrite of SDL from PL/I into C/C++.

--

--- Rob

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2023-03-01 19:15, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-03-01, Jan-Erik Söderholm <jan-erik....@telia.com> wrote:
>> Den 2023-03-01 kl. 13:34, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
>>> On 3/1/2023 1:34 AM, walter....@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> Since I will retire sometimes this year, I will probably loose access to
>>>> OpenVMS systems.
>>>> If anybody is willing to take over maintenance of FIND/REPLACE, please
>>>> contact me.
>>>
>>> You could continue with VMS as a hobbyist (VSI Community License).
>>>
>>> Arne
>>>
>>
>> Maybe "I will probably loose access to" was just a nicer
>> way to say "I will probably loose interest in"...
>>
>> :-)
>>
>> If/when I retire I'm not at all sure that I want to
>> continue as a VMS hobbyist...
>>
>
> Well, some people _still_ like to play with PDP-11 systems... :-)

And some PDP-11 systems are still out there in production. ;-)

Johnny

[bill]

Apparently in nuclear power plants.... :-)

bill

[walter....@gmail.com]

Robert A. Brooks schrieb am Donnerstag, 2. März 2023 um 03:08:58 UTC+1:
> On 3/1/2023 1:34 AM, walter....@gmail.com wrote:

> > Since I will retire sometime this year, I will probably loose access to OpenVMS systems.

> > If anybody is willing to take over maintenance of FIND/REPLACE, please contact me.
> In addition to FIND/REPLACE, among Walter's contributions to VMS during his time
> at DEC/CPQ/HP is the rewrite of SDL from PL/I into C/C++.
>
> --
>
> --- Rob

Thank you, Rob.

As to "I will probably loose interest in": I started writing this tool in 1988 because I was disappointed to see that SEARCH didn't support regular expressions.
After 2010, I mostly programmed on Windows, and after 2014 I hardly used OpenVMS at all, which is the reason I didn't notice the lack of support for ODS5.
In 2019 I was back on OpenVMS, supporting programs I didn't write, stored in CMS libraries on ODS5 disks. So I started using it again, and implemented color highlighting and, after some discussion with hb, ODS5 support. And I added PCRE2 after seeing Ferdinand's question. It just took three years until we installed cross tools and an X86_64 system.

Without using it myself, there is not much motivation for enhancements. I am still willing to fix bugs as long as I have access to OpenVMS systems, but I won't install OpenVMS at home. (Actually, there was no bug report in the last 20 years and I don't remember any from the time before.)

[Henry Crun]

On 06/03/2023 8:53, walter....@gmail.com wrote:
<..snipped...>

> Robert A. Brooks schrieb am Donnerstag, 2. März 2023 um 03:08:58 UTC+1:
>> On 3/1/2023 1:34 AM, walter....@gmail.com wrote:

<...end snip...>

I've been using a simple FIND/REPLACE of my own for several decades now.
Not especially clever, but works for me.
I'm sure it can be debugged and/or improved (KISS...)

at DCL level:
$ REPL*ACE == "Edit/TPU/NOsection/Command=Disk:[wherever]rep.tpu"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ <== edit here

<code rep.tpu>
PROCEDURE global_search_replace( str1,str2 )
LOCAL src_range, replace_count

ON_ERROR
msg_txt := FAO(" Completed !UL replacement!%S " , replace_count );
MESSAGE(msg_txt);
RETURN;
ENDON_ERROR;

replace_count := 0;
LOOP
src_range := SEARCH( str1,FORWARD );
ERASE( src_range );
POSITION( END_OF( src_range ) );
COPY_TEXT( str2 );
replace_count := replace_count + 1;
ENDLOOP;
ENDPROCEDURE;

file_spec := GET_INFO( COMMAND_LINE,"file_name" );
next_file := "";
IF file_spec = ""
THEN
MESSAGE( "You did not enter an input file-spec (wildcards allowed)" ) ;
EXIT ;
EndIf ;

in_str := READ_LINE ( " Input_String :" ) ;
MESSAGE(" ");
out_str := READ_LINE ( "Output_String :" ) ;
Loop
next_file := File_Search (file_spec);
Exitif next_file = "";
msg_txt := FAO( "Working on !AS" , next_file );
MESSAGE ( msg_txt ) ;
main_buffer := CREATE_BUFFER( "main",next_file ) ;
POSITION( BEGINNING_OF( main_buffer ) ) ;
global_search_replace( in_str,out_str ) ;
WRITE_FILE ( main_buffer ) ;
DELETE ( main_buffer ) ;
MESSAGE("------------------");
MESSAGE(" ");
Endloop ;
Exit ;
!
</code>

Let EDT do the work.

--
No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#befor

[Henry Crun]

On 06/03/2023 8:53, walter....@gmail.com wrote:

Apologies: Please disregard my previous post, it should be attributed to the TPU MANUAL

[Simon Clubley]

On 2023-03-06, walter....@gmail.com <walter....@gmail.com> wrote:
> but I won't install OpenVMS at home.

In other words, Walter is what society considers to be a "normal" person... :-)

[Johnny Billquist]

So it's been said. But I know various other places from a more personal
experience, that still run PDP-11s as well.

Johnny

[bill]

Know any that are still running COBOL or Fortran on their PDP-11's
that are looking for a little help. :-)

bill

[Johnny Billquist]

Don't know of any that is running COBOL, but a couple that use FORTRAN.
I don't think they are looking any help though. Sorry. :-(

Johnny

[bill]

It's tough being a dinosaur when nobody even studies paleontology
any more. :-(

bill

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 3/6/2023 8:31 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2023-03-03 18:25, bill wrote:
>> On 3/3/2023 8:32 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>> On 2023-03-01 19:15, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>> Well, some people _still_ like to play with PDP-11 systems... :-)
>>>
>>> And some PDP-11 systems are still out there in production. ;-)
>>
>> Apparently in nuclear power plants....  :-)
>
> So it's been said.

That has been stated many times.

Example:

https://www.techrepublic.com/pictures/the-antique-computers-that-just-wont-quit/?slide-index=3

> But I know various other places from a more personal
> experience, that still run PDP-11s as well.

https://history-computer.com/dec-pdp-11-computer/

says:

"The PDP-11 is definitely still in use today, thanks to its unique and
strong build. It is still used to power a GE nuclear power-plant robotic
application — and will do so until 2050.

Technically, due to its potency, it is still used by the US Navy in its
ship radar systems and by Airbus SAS. There are also rumors that it is
part of the set up in the British Atomic Weapons Establishment."

Arne

[Johnny Billquist]

Well, I know of them in steel plants, sawmills, testing equipment for
engines and airplanes, and to manage public transport planning and
management.

But yes, I've read about the nuclear plant one as well. But I don't
personally have any knowledge of it.

Johnny

[bill]

I would think there are also a number (possibly large) of small
automotive shops still running Bridgeports which were driven by
a PDP-11/02 running RT-11.

bill

[Hunter Goatley]

On 3/1/2023 1:34 AM, walter....@gmail.com wrote:

> Since I will retire sometimes this year, I will probably loose access to OpenVMS systems.
> If anybody is willing to take over maintenance of FIND/REPLACE, please contact me.

I apparently never followed up here on comp.os.vms. I have received the
sources from Walter, and, as soon as I have time to investigate---lots
going on right now---I intend to take over the maintenance.

Stay tuned!

--
Hunter
------
Hunter Goatley, Process Software, http://www.process.com/
goath...@goatley.com http://hunter.goatley.com/

[Ian Miller]

Good news

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 4/10/2023 11:32 PM, Hunter Goatley wrote:
> On 3/1/2023 1:34 AM, walter....@gmail.com wrote:
>> Since I will retire sometimes this year, I will probably loose access
>> to OpenVMS systems.
>> If anybody is willing to take over maintenance of FIND/REPLACE, please
>> contact me.
>
> I apparently never followed up here on comp.os.vms. I have received the
> sources from Walter, and, as soon as I have time to investigate---lots
> going on right now---I intend to take over the maintenance.

On behalf of myself and probably/hopefully many other
VMS people: thank you.

Arne