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From: payne@watdcsu.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: SYS$ANNOUNCE Logical Name Bug Or Feature
Message-ID: <3678@watdcsu.waterloo.edu>
Date: Sat, 25-Jul-87 10:46:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.3678
Posted: Sat Jul 25 10:46:28 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jul-87 19:35:23 EDT
References: <870721110411.016@XHMEIA.Caltech.Edu> <8707221212.AA17899@mitre-bedford.ARPA>
Reply-To: payne@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (Doug Payne)
Distribution: world
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 26

In article <8707221212.AA17899@mitre-bedford.ARPA> mhg@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA (Mark H. Granoff) writes:
>
>>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.
>
>That's why there's such a thing as 'SYS$MANAGER:WELCOME.TXT' or
>whatever you might call it.  After a person logs in, and is executing
>(not by choice) SYLOGIN.COM, there can be a TYPE command to display a
>text file with 'useful info at login.'
>

An even better way is to define SYS$ANNOUNCE (and SYS$WELCOME) to point to a
text file:

$	DEFINE /SYSTEM /EXEC SYS$ANNOUNCE "@SYS$MANAGER:ANNOUNCE.TXT"
$	DEFINE /SYSTEM /EXEC SYS$WELCOME  "@SYS$MANAGER:WELCOME.TXT"

This gives the advantage of being able to make these files however long you
want, and of being able to change them on the fly (i.e. to announce down
time, etc.). Just make sure that they are WORLD readable.

Doug