Why use U* over VMS

[Boyd Roberts]

In article <1380 at tharr.UUCP> sweh at tharr.UUCP (Stephen Harris) writes:
>How in VMS do you have filters and pipelines?
>eg, what would be the VMS (DCL?) equivalent of
>	getso - | tbl | pic | eqn | rof | col | sqps | lpr -Ppost < file
>
>>Is there an equivalent, or would it need a lot of temporary files?
>

It would be a lot of temporary files.  But look at it this way, you could
set up a file `stdout.dat' manipulated by a DCL script that ran all the
commands in sequence such that:

  process n's stdout.dat;N     == process n+1's standard input

  process n+1's stdout.dat;N+1 == process n+2's standard input

  etc...

It'd be marvellous, a different version of stdout for each output stage
of the pipeline.  All individually named by version number and _all_ of
them left lying around after the completion of the `pipeline'

The possibilities are endless!  :-)


Boyd Roberts			boyd at necisa.ho.necisa.oz.au

``When the going gets wierd, the weird turn pro...''