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The Question is:
I have inherited an in-house application that uses sys$qiow to dump serial data
down to a printer from a VAX COBOL program. The printers are being replaced,
and the new printers were detecting unknown characters in the text string.
Using a serial data a
nalyzer, I could see that the characters were a carriage return and line feed,
inserted randomly through my text string. However, about 50% of the time the
text comes down to the printer clean. I do an on-screen display of the text
string right before t
he qio call, so I know that it is ok going into the qio. My question: Have
you heard of a sys$qiow inserting a CR/LF before, and is there a way of
preventing it?
The client is pushing hard for this to be resolved. I would appreciate any
help you could give me quickly.
Thanks
Steve Browning
The Answer is :
Rather than using a datascope, the OpenVMS Wizard would monitor what
was passed into the $qio call, and what is different between the case(s)
that work and the case(s) that fail. $qio is a low-level raw I/O call,
and only performs the formatting that is explicitly requested, either
by formatting that is directly embedded in the data written via the
$qio call, or by explict specification of the terminal driver carriage
forms control mechanisms in the $qio call.
$qio is the interface into OpenVMS device drivers, and it underlies the
vast majority of OpenVMS I/O operations. Any prevelent or any common
problem with the $qio call itself would thus tend to appear in a wide
variety of areas and a wide variety of components. While this does not
rule out bugs in $qio, the first assumption would be bugs in the
application code or in another part of the I/O configuration -- in
the site-specific I/O configuration, in (for the largest I/O buffer
permitted) the setting of the system parameter MAXBUF, in the device
driver or device-specific configration, etc.
In particular, you will want to determine the difference -- the input
data file contents, the record lengths, the target device, the printer
settings, the terminal server port characteristcs, IP vs LAT, terminal
port settings, etc -- between the fifty percent of the calls that
reportedly succeed and the fifty percent of the calls that reportedly
fail. If, for instance, the specific terminal line is set up to wrap
the output based on the width of the terminal (or printer), you will
the terminal driver -- though not $qio -- insert a carriage return
and line feed as required to manage the width.
For some of the more typical programming errors that the OpenVMS Wizard
is familiar with, please see topic (1661).
Use of $sndjbc, a print queue, and a (temporary) file may provide an
alternative approach to the $qio to the printer device.
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