Notes: Xvmsutils

Installation

To compile the xvmsutils is pretty straightforward. Unpack the sources and execute make.com. This should take care about all the dependencies on platform, OpenVMS version and C compiler version. These actually impose a pretty complicated set of conditions on the compilation and quite a bit of work went into working them out. In case MMS/MMK is installed this will be used to perform the actual compile, otherwise make.com will handle it by itself.

Unfortunatly the compilation on OpenVMS Alpha still produces some informational messages in strings.mar, which I haven't managed to resolve yet due to a profound lack in Macro-Knowledge. Still also this module seems to work ok.

If you install a new DEC C compiler/OpenVMS version and receive messages about multiply defined symbols using a previously compiled version of the Xvmsutils objectlibrary, delete it and rebuild the file. Just reexecuting make.com won't help since this will reuse the existing library file and therefore modules once inserted won't vanish from it.

Setup

To be able to refer to the include files of the library without too much hassle you might want to define a logical X11VMS, which points to the directory where you've installed the Xvmsutils.

History

Actually this library was developed first about 1989 to support a port of the X11R3/R4 applications to VMS. I'm taking care of the code since 1995. Mostly this means nowadays removing bits and pieces either in the makefiles or in the code (i.e. using appropriate #ifdefs in this case) since the DEC C compiler contains more and more of the functions in the meantime by itself. If you have suggestions how to improve the library still drop me a note, I'll be happy to discuss the topic with you.

User Notes

Notes Entry

Comments to: Martin P.J. Zinser
Last modified: 20000822