Adventures in Technical Support

This feature was called the technical support call of the week, however, we have already had feedback saying that this is answering questions for our customers, and since I have a fairly large collection of support calls, this feature is now called Adventures in Technical Support.

Feel free to say Adventures in Technical Support like a over zealous small market radio announcer, driving in a convertable thru a tunnel.


Creating Text/Keep file On HP-UX

On MPE, the products we use recognize Qedit open/shut files (PowerHouse, MPEX/Streamx, Qedify'd compilers, etc.), but on HP-UX, nothing but Qedit recognizes open/shut files, so we either have to use qcat, or go through the routine of using the New command to create the file, then at some point, shutting it, then texting and keeping it. (or, by copying a file we know to be text/keep, and deleting what we don't need. That works, but still adds a few extra steps.)

I've looked through the help file, hoping to find a heretofore unknown (by me, anyway) option of the New, Text, or Shut command that would do that, but, no luck. Interestingly enough, when creating a new host file in Qedit for Windows, you can specify to save it as a Qedit Workfile or not. However, no similar feature exists on Qedit server.

What do you recommend?

Dear X, Here is what I do:

  /touch newfile
  /t newfile

Sincerely,
Neil Armstrong
Robelle

Duh. Why didn't I think of that.
Thanks!


Unique Filenames!

Hello, We currently exchange files with several call centers and websites.

We receive order files, and we send inventory updates and ship confirmations. In general the files received are either uniquely named by the source machine, or renamed by our ftp process to incorporate a date and time. The files we send go out with the same file name each day.

Recently I was asked to provide uniquely named files to one of our new call centers. I have attempted to adapt the syntax we use to rename incoming files (which was written by a developer who left the company years ago), but without success. Can you help me with this?

I have a lengthy Suprtool/STExport job that gathers inventory data and formats for a different system. My final output file is named "gtivfile". I would like to rename it "IVmmddhh" so that the filename will clearly indicate when it was run when I ftp it to the call center.

How can I accomplish this?

Thank you

Our Response

Dear

This is very easy to do and this code works in either Suprtool or STExport.

You first have to insure that variable substitution is on, with:

  >set varsub on

Then you use an output command that uses an MPE variable that is set to mmddhh equivalent.

  >output IV!mmddhh
  >xeq
Now the key would be a simple MPE setvar command that would take a portion of the MPE variable !HPDATETIME. If you do a showvar hpdatetime you will see the complete date with hours and minutes, and you can just set that portion with some simple MPE programming.

Such as:

  SETVAR MMDDHH STR("!hpdatetime",5,6)

which means set the variable mmddhh using the string portion of the variable hpdatetime starting in position 5 for 6 bytes.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Neil Armstrong
Robelle

It works

Success!

Thank you, Neil. Once again, the best value in support comes from Robelle!


Qedit Column changes!

A customer e-mailed us to as they knew what they wanted to do, but they did not know what syntax to use for manipulating columns.

I have a file. These are the things I need to do to it, but I don’t know the terminology. I wouldn’t think this is too difficult but I’m too new to Qedit. Any help would be appreciated!

On lines that have “003” in columns 17/19:
I need to move columns 46/54 to 48/56
I need to add “00” to columns 46/47
I need to add “55” to columns 57/58

For instance:

Now: 9999999999999999003                          000999999                        U
Need:9999999999999999003                          0000099999955                    U

On lines that have “004” in columns 17/19:
I need to move 35/43 to 37/45 and I need to add “00” to 35/36

Now:  9999999999999999004               000999999                       000000T
Need: 9999999999999999004               00000999999                     000000T
Sorry, I forgot to mention that we’re trying to edit a file inside a job, not interactively, on our Unix box.

My Response

First I test out all the commands to make sure I have them correct. If I am interpreting what you are showing, here are the commands that I think you want:

colmove 46/54 48/56 "003" (17/19)
change 46/47 "00" "003" (17/19)
change 57/58 "55" "003" (17/19)
colmove 35/43 37/45 "004 (17/19)
ch 35/36 "00" "004" (17/19)

Now in terms of putting in a script what you can do is:

cat << EOD >tempin
colmove 46/54 48/56 "003" (17/19)
change 46/47 "00" "003" (17/19)
change 57/58 "55" "003" (17/19)
colmove 35/43 37/45 "004 (17/19)
ch 35/36 "00" "004" (17/19)
EOD
/opt/robelle/bin/qedit <tempin
More Explanation

Addendum to the call, what does it all mean?

Here is the script with annotated comments, first how the script is run:

cat << EOD >tempin
commands
EOD
/opt/robelle/bin/qedit <tempin
The above commands are the guts to running a script in "batch" on HP-UX so to speak. The HP-UX cat command just provides a method of appending a series of Qedit commands to a file called tempin, which are then invoked the the simpile Input redirection run of Qedit.

To learn more about the cat command you can do a :

$man cat
on your HP-UX box or read our HP-UX quick start article.

Now in terms of the Qedit commands, they are relatively easy you will notice that the rangelist (lines that qualify), is at the end of each command:

colmove 46/54 48/56 "003" (17/19)
The above command moves columns 46/54 to 48/56 on all lines that have an "003" in columns 17 thru 19.

change 46/47 "00" "003" (17/19)
Put "00" in columns 46 thru 47 on all lines that have an "003" in columns 17 thru 19.

change 57/58 "55" "003" (17/19)
Put "55" in columns 57/58 on all lines that have an "003" in columns 17 thru 19.

colmove 35/43 37/45 "004 (17/19)
The above command moves columns 35/43 to 37/45 on all lines that have an "004" in columns 17 thru 19.

ch 35/36 "00" "004" (17/19)
Put "00" in columns 35/36 for all lines that have "004" in columns 17 thru 19.


SD files off of tape

A customer called in to find a way to get SD files off of tape and directly onto an HP 3000. Unfortunately our SDUNIX program currently only works on the 3000, by creating a data file and a file for the label information, however, the folks at Allegro have a solution:

If you have files from a 3000 that are on tape that you need to migrate to a new system, but you don't have a 3000 anymore, then there are a couple options. The first would be to find someone with a 3000 who can restore the files from tape and then extract/convert/transport/migrate the files (or the data within them).

Another option is our product Rosetta Store which is a :RESTORE program that runs on HP-UX (Linux coming soon). It can read most HP and all Orbit Backup+ :STORE formats and it understands both the tape formats and the internal formats of most MPE file types and so it can both extract the MPE files and convert them into a forma that's usable on the new system.

When you ask Rosetta Store to restore an MPE SD file that was created with Suprtool or Query, it will automatically be converted into the kind of SD files used by Suprtool on HP-UX.

In addition to handling SD files, Rosetta Store also handles Image databases, KSAM files, and most other MPE file types, and can extract the data from these files into various formats such as CSV files for spreadsheets, and alternative database systems like Eloquence.

If you want more information I can get you in touch with one of our sales people.

Best regards,



Gavin
Allegro Consultants, Inc.
gavin@allegro.com


My file is Empty Help!

I started with Robelle in technical support about 13 years ago and I had the following situation come up, which took me an embarassingly long time to figure out the first time I encountered it!

The basic premise is, the customer does a Suprtool extract and clearly sees that records were selected and written to a file. However, when they list the file with Qedit, or print the file via MPE, nothing shows up?

>get d-inventory
>out dinv,link
>exit
IN=7, OUT=7. CPU-Sec=1. Wall-Sec=1.
End Run

/list dinv
 Warning: No Line 
/:print dinv
Now, typically anytime anyone tries to list or print a file and they get the wrong file or information they were not expecting, we ask for two things:
listftemp,2
listeq
Usually, the empty file is due to an empty TEMPORARY file with the same name as the permanent one.
/listftemp,2

TEMPORARY FILES FOR MGR.TECHSUP,NEIL

ACCOUNT=  TECHSUP     GROUP=  NEIL    

FILENAME  CODE  ------------LOGICAL RECORD-----------  ----SPACE----
                  SIZE  TYP        EOF      LIMIT R/B  SECTORS #X MX

DINV      SD       38B  FA           0          0 107       16  1  1 (TEMP)

So if you get results you were not expecting, usually the answer is in the result of a listftemp,2 or listeq command.


Minisoft/Qedit and Function Keys!

We're trying to use Minisoft and Visual mode in Qedit. When trying to go into visual mode, the process freezes as Qedit is trying to set the function keys.

The function key definition page comes up, and you can see that the function key labels are being defined properly (i.e. the text is 'Upd-Next / Visual' for F1, etc.), but the display never completes.

All you need to do is get into minisoft, click on config then on 'comms network' then select telnet (probably already done), then click on OK then check the box labelled "Xmit Null of CR". After that your function keys should work perfectly.


System Date in Export Files

Is there a way to get today's date or system date into an STEXPORT output file?

I generate a lot of stexport files where users are opening on their PC's.

The question came up as they like to keep/archive a lot of the files they receive and many extracts don't have dates as part of the selected criteria. If there was a way to get the created date on the HP into the file somewhere, that would be ideal.

SET VARSUB ON
SETVAR MYDT
RHT("0!HPMONTH",2)+"/"+RHT("0!HPDATE",2)+"/"+RHT("0!HPYEAR",2)
EXPORT IN AUTOMVF9
EXPORT ZERO LEADING
EXPORT SIGN NONE
EXPORT COLUMNS FIXED
EXPORT HEADING COLUMN 'Item Number'
EXPORT HEADING COLUMN 'Pick Location'
EXPORT HEADING COLUMN '#Of Times Replenished'
EXPORT HEADING COLUMN 'Total Qty Replenished'
EXPORT HEADING COLUMN 'Capacity'
EXPORT HEADING COLUMN 'Daily Automoves for- !mydat'
EXPORT OUTPUT AUTOMVXT
EXPORT XEQ
EXPORT EXIT 


Windows HTML Help Files

One of the options for our Windows help files is in HTML Help format which have the extension of .chm. Some users have reported that when clicking on a topic you may get the error:

The page cannot be displayed:

A google, revealed the following article on Microsoft, and the vendor that supplies the software that helps build our Help files recommended doing the steps in Example 2 of this Microsoft article.