[vim/vim] VMS: spurious "INVALID DECC FEATURE VALUE" message at every startup (PR #20904)

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Scott Klein

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Jul 31, 2026, 10:07:47 PM (22 hours ago) Jul 31

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Problem

On OpenVMS, Vim prints a spurious error at every startup — one line per DECC feature:

INVALID DECC FEATURE VALUE, 1: 0 <= DECC$ARGV_PARSE_STYLE <= 1.
INVALID DECC FEATURE VALUE, 1: 0 <= DECC$EFS_CASE_PRESERVE <= 2.
INVALID DECC FEATURE VALUE, 1: 0 <= DECC$EFS_CHARSET <= 1.

Note the message is self-contradicting: it reports value 1 as invalid for the range 0 <= x <= 1.

Cause

In vms_init_files() (src/os_vms.c) the if has no braces, so else binds to the inner if, not the range check the indentation implies:

if ((decc_feat_array[i].value >= feat_value_min) && (decc_feat_array[i].value <= feat_value_max))
    // Valid value.  Set it if necessary
    if (feat_value != decc_feat_array[i].value)
        sts = decc$feature_set_value(feat_index, 1, decc_feat_array[i].value);
else
    // Invalid DECC feature value
    printf("INVALID DECC FEATURE VALUE, %d: %d <= %s <= %d.\n", ...);

Effectively:

if (in_range) {
    if (feat_value != wanted) set_it();
    else printf("INVALID DECC FEATURE VALUE ...");   // fires when ALREADY correct
}

So there are two defects:

the message is printed precisely when the feature is already set to the value Vim wants — which is what happens whenever the corresponding DECC logical name is defined;
a genuinely out-of-range value now falls into the empty else of the outer if and is silently ignored, so the real error condition is never reported.

Reproduce

On OpenVMS, define any of the three features as a logical name and start Vim:

$ DEFINE DECC$EFS_CHARSET ENABLE
$ vim

Fix

Add braces so else binds to the range check.

Testing

Verified on OpenVMS x86-64 V9.2-3, Vim 9.2 (patches 1-888) built with MMS V4.0-5 and VSI C x86-64 V7.7-003:

before: 3 spurious messages at every startup;
after: 0 messages, with the logicals still defined (DECC$EFS_CHARSET = ENABLE) — confirming the fix rather than removal of the logicals, which Vim needs for ODS-5 filename handling.

No test is added: this path is OpenVMS-only, runs from LIB$INITIALIZE before Vim starts, and its observable effect is text on stdout at image activation, so it is not reachable from the src/testdir harness. Happy to add one if you see a way.

Not tested on Alpha or IA-64 — only x86-64. The change is platform-independent C, but I can only claim what I ran.

AI disclosure

Per CONTRIBUTING.md: this patch was found and written by Claude Opus 5 (Anthropic), driven by me. It surfaced while building Vim from source on a hobbyist OpenVMS x86-64 system. The diagnosis, the before/after runs, and the reproduction above were all performed on real hardware, not inferred.

You can view, comment on, or merge this pull request online at:

https://github.com/vim/vim/pull/20904

Commit Summary

a92bcf1 VMS: spurious "INVALID DECC FEATURE VALUE" message at every startup

File Changes

(1 file)

M src/os_vms.c (2)

Patch Links:

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Christian Brabandt

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8:49 AM (12 hours ago) 8:49 AM

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chrisbra left a comment (vim/vim#20904)

thanks

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