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From: carl@CITHEX.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: SYS$ANNOUNCE Logical Name Bug Or Feature
Message-ID: <870723000528.03s@CitHex.Caltech.Edu>
Date: Thu, 23-Jul-87 03:09:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: CitHex.870723000528.03s
Posted: Thu Jul 23 03:09:04 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jul-87 05:55:51 EDT
References: <870721110411.016@XHMEIA.Caltech.Edu>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 15


 > I found out today that while you can make the logical name SYS$ANNOUNCE
 > point to a string as big as 255 characters, once that string exceeds
 > 128 characters, the LOGINOUT system no longer uses it (you end up with
 > no announcement prior to username: prompt). This is STUPID! I'm generating
 > a rather long SYS$ANNOUNCE string with embedded s and s to give
 > some useful info at login and DEC contradicts itself. Geez.

This may be a holdover from the days when equivalence names were limited
to 64 characters (remember, logical names were originally intended only
to point to files).  However, all is not lost.  Why don't you put the
SYS$ANNOUNCE text in a file (say, SYS$MANAGER:ANNOUNCE.TXT), then issue
the command:
	$ DEFINE/SYSTEM/EXECUTIVE_MODE SYS$ANNOUNCE "@SYS$MANAGER:ANNOUNCE.TXT"
The same strategy works for SYS$WELCOME.