Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-crg!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!YALE.ARPA!LEICHTER-JERRY From: LEICHTER-JERRY@YALE.ARPA Newsgroups: mod.computers.vax Subject: Re: Submission to mod.computers.vax Message-ID: <8612010704.AA22552@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Date: Mon, 1-Dec-86 02:05:03 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8612010704.AA22552 Posted: Mon Dec 1 02:05:03 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 1-Dec-86 06:43:48 EST Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To:Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 38 Approved: info-vax@sri-kl.arpa Is there a way in VMS 4.4 to retrieve the command line exactly as the user typed it, without having DCL chomp on it. Among the many features of LIB$GET_FOREIGN(), DCL converts case, ignores text after !, and invokes its own quoting mechanism. I simply wish to obtain exactly what the user typed. I am willing to work in almost any language to get this done. Is this possible? I don't believe this is possible. You might try using the $REST_OF_LINE CLD type, but I'm pretty sure you'd be handed the "cleaned up" version of the rest of the line, not the original text. If you absolutely MUST have the information in this form, you could probably read it out of some buffer inside of DCL. Finding it would take some intense fiche reading, and of course the result would be highly likely to break with each new version of VMS. I would strongly recommend finding some other solu- tion. Note: In many cases, you can do something like this: COMMAND == "$prog """ Then when COMMAND is used, there is a free open quote, and case, spacing, "!"'s, and so on are preserved. DCL will supply a free "virtual close quote" at the end of the line, so that's not a problem. Of course this fails if you ever need to use a quotation mark in an argument to COMMAND - you'd need to double it: COMMAND This is a quote: "" Typing: COMMAND This is a quote: " instead will pass 'This is a quote: ' to COMMAND; embedded quotes will produce odd error messages. -- Jerry -------