Tweaked Questions !!!!!
Padmaraj Bhat
At times, worthless questions stuck to my mind; I hope this forum is
right place to share .
1. TACL stands for Tandem Advanced Command Language.....Was there any
old version /old command interpreter with which "advanced" command
language came up......or in other words ....was there any TCL ( Tandem
Command Language).before and then TACL came after evlolution?
2. With what language TAL pgm language is built out of ? I heard it is
built out of C, is it true ?
I know couple of differences between C and TAL......but what is the
most important point(s) which should drive me to use TAL ?
3. #PROCESSORSTATUS command indicates there can only be 16 CPUs in a
system.....is it is the upper limit value in any NonStop Server ?
4. While configuring TERM under TCP (in Pathway) we mention terminal
name( usually the #myterm output / existing paused TACL terminal
name) . Now to send 100 outstanding request should I open 100 TACL
session ???
5. Why do we have NUNU (4 permissions) when OSS/ unix has only RWX ?
6. Format 1 can have size upto 2GB -1 MB....what is the max file size
of Format 2 ?
7. Give an real world scenario where a procedure in TAL should have
VARIABLE keyword instead of EXTENSIBLE...and vice versa !!
Much more questions will follow once they arrive :)
Thanks,
Paddy
Doug Miller
>Hello Team,
>
>At times, worthless questions stuck to my mind; I hope this forum is
>right place to share .
>Much more questions will follow once they arrive :)
Sorry, but I think you're not going to pass that technical interview.
Joachim Schmitz
> Hello Team,
>
> At times, worthless questions stuck to my mind; I hope this forum is
> right place to share .
>
> 1. TACL stands for Tandem Advanced Command Language.....Was there any
> old version /old command interpreter with which "advanced" command
> language came up......or in other words ....was there any TCL ( Tandem
> Command Language).before and then TACL came after evlolution?
As far as I know there was COMINT before. But that was before my time...
> 2. With what language TAL pgm language is built out of ? I heard it is
> built out of C, is it true ?
> I know couple of differences between C and TAL......but what is the
> most important point(s) which should drive me to use TAL ?
It is NonStop's "Native" language, similar to C in the UNIX world.
> 3. #PROCESSORSTATUS command indicates there can only be 16 CPUs in a
> system.....is it is the upper limit value in any NonStop Server ?
Yes.
> 4. While configuring TERM under TCP (in Pathway) we mention terminal
> name( usually the #myterm output / existing paused TACL terminal
> name) . Now to send 100 outstanding request should I open 100 TACL
> session ???
??? I think you should _not_ be using [#myterm], but $ZHOME or $NULL, or
some such, for (server-) processes that may loose their dynamic home term.
> 5. Why do we have NUNU (4 permissions) when OSS/ unix has only RWX ?
Why questions are strictly forbidden 8-).
OSS/UNIX/POSIX does have purge permission too, but non on file level, just
on directory level. OSS/UNIX/POSIX does not have network security (on file
system level, only on user level), just local.
> 6. Format 1 can have size upto 2GB -1 MB....what is the max file size
> of Format 2 ?
Tried looking that up in the manuals or KBNS?
I'd guess Format 1 used a singned long (4 bytes/31 bits), while format2 uses
signed long long (8 bytes/63bits), their maximum would derive from that
range of bits.
> 7. Give an real world scenario where a procedure in TAL should have
> VARIABLE keyword instead of EXTENSIBLE...and vice versa !!
>
> Much more questions will follow once they arrive :)
>
> Thanks,
> Paddy
Bye, Jojo
whatever
wrote:
6.) I believe 1 TB is the answer...check the FUP manual.
Keith Dick
The FUP manual seems to be inconsistent on the point. It says the maximum extent size for a format 2 file is 512,000,000 pages, or 2,147,483,647 bytes, or 2,147,483,647 records. Since a page is 2048 bytes, that first figure converts to approximately 1 TB, which clearly is not the same as the second figure, and since a record is typically a lot more than 1 bytes long, that's clearly not the same as the third figure.
Three quite different values in the same paragraph. Why am I not surprised?
The Enscribe Programmer's Guide says the maximum extent size for format 2 is 536,870,912 pages, which is probably what that first number in the FUP manual was intended to be. It happens to be 2**29, which seems like a somewhat strange limit. We'd have to look at the format of the file labels to see why that's the limit (if it actually is the limit). If there is public documentation of the file labels, I don't know where it is.
The Guardian Proc Calls Manual chickens out and doesn't even state a limit on the extent size for format 2 files. At least I did not see a limit stated in the description of FILE_CREATELIST_. If it is there, I missed it.
So, if that number in the Enscribe Programmer's Guide is correct, the maximum size of an extent for a format 2 file is 2**40, or 1 TB. A file can have at least 16 extents, so by that calculation, a format 2 file could be up to 16 TB. Of course, there are no discs that large. I don't know whether HP offers even 1 TB discs yet for a NonStop system. But when discs that large are available, format 2 files that large would be possible.
The format of blocks in format 2 structured files use a 4-byte block number to refer to blocks in the file. Since the largest block currently is 4KB, that would limit the maximum file size to 2**12 * 2**32 = 2**44 = 16 TB, so the two limits are consistent. I wonder whether the extent size was artificially limited to 2**29 pages just to keep it consistent with the range allowed by the pointers in the structured blocks. An unstructured file would not have to accommodate those block pointers, so I wonder whether it allows a larger extent size. Since discs aren't anywhere near that large now, it doesn't matter for a while.
Of course, if you consider a partitioned file, the 16 TB maximum is multiplied by the number of partitions, which is up to 16 partitions for Enscribe files, and potentially hundreds of partitions for SQL tables. So even 16 TB isn't the actual maximum.
MicroTech
For a quick "ballpark" figure on the disk space needed by an Enscribe
file (or an SQL/MP table), read on!
Several years ago, as part of my cooperation with my Korean partners
(ezTips, Inc (http://www.eztips.co.kr)), I hacked a little VB tool for
SQL/MP table sizing, to incorporate in our ezSQL product.
URL (TableSizer.exe only): http://www.box.net/shared/hq6bjbjh3m
No installation needed, just download and run. If you worry about
downloading executables, and if you have access to Microsoft Visual
Basic 6, you can download the complete VB6 project and compile it
yourself.
URL (TableSizer.zip): http://www.box.net/shared/tith398fuu
For Enscribe files, read "rows" as "records" and "table(s)" as
"file(s)"! The "help" text (help.docx in the zip archive) gives you
some additional info regarding file/table sizes.
Cheers,
Henry Norman
MicroTech Consulting
http://groups.google.com/group/microtech_software