In article <55d2jn$3l0 at krypto.zippo.com>, mcoyne at argo.net (Michael Coyne) writes:
> Hello -
>> I've wriiten a command file for OpenVMS which simply takes the two
> steps needed to change a flat ASCII text file into a GCG file and
> makes it a single step by linking chopup and reformat.
>> I'd like to add wildcard capabilities to this com file, so that one
> could, for example, issue the command:
>> chopgcg *.txt
>> and have chopgcg (the name of the com file I've written) act on all
> files in the directory with the .txt extension.
>> Is there a general way of doing this, some kind of loop, or a
> statement similar in function to the DOS command FOR (xx) IN (xx) DO
> (xx)?
>
Yes, there is a way of doing this; you loop the filespec through
F$SEARCH; on each pass a pointer is updated (and you can also have
multiple streams) such that F$SEARCH returns the next file in the
wildcard. I used to do this sort of thing... However, if I were you,
I would rewrite it in perl! I have had few problems with VMS perl of
5.002 or higher - perl is how we solve this particular problem.
The perl script can call GCG programs if necessary.
Hugh
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Dr Hugh Salter Oxford University Molecular Biology Data Centre
hugh at molbiol.ox.ac.uk Tel: (01865) 2-75507
"Even if you're not paranoid, they're probably out to get you anyway"
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