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Conference azur::mcc

Title:DECmcc user notes file. Does not replace IPMT.
Notice:Use IPMT for problems. Newsletter location in note 6187
Moderator:TAEC::BEROUD
Created:Mon Aug 21 1989
Last Modified:Wed Jun 04 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:6497
Total number of notes:27359

1609.0. "Usability question. Please respond." by WEPUBS::MILLER (Das ist schreibvergn�gen) Mon Oct 07 1991 11:06

I am writing documentation for an application that is built on DECmcc.  Some of
the application tests for early baselevels are implemented as command files 
which can be submitted and later evaluated.

I have a question for those of you who use DECmcc extensively.

Are DCL command files a useful form for performing long, multi-operation
procedures with DECmcc?  Please consider any task that requires setting many
attributes for more than one entity.

FWIW:  Any usability information (tips, insights, even preferences) about the
three (line, form, window) interfaces would be greatly appreciated.

Reply here or send me mail.

Thank you very much,

-steve miller
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1609.1hard to make "smart" proceduresCOOKIE::KITTELLRichard - Architected Info MgmtMon Oct 07 1991 12:2133
Hi Steve, fancy meeting you here. (Steve's on our media library/media robot
team).

The DCL procedures work well for reproducibly executing a fixed set of 
directives when the results are evaluated externally. In the case you
reference, we use DECTest Manager (DTM) to DIFF the results of each directive
with what we expected, so that works okay. Note also that the command
procedures issue only one MCC (Manage/Enterprise) command at the $ prompt, then
all directives are issued to the MCC> prompt, so it is more an MCC script
than a DCL command procedure.

What is much harder is writing a DCL procedure that intelligently senses 
the result of a directive and does the right thing. On the one hand, if
each directive is issued as a separate invocation of MCC, the procedure could
sense the exit status:

$ MCC directive target_class instance, argument=value
$ IF $STATUS .NES "<something expected>" THEN GOTO <somewhere else>

Trouble is, the exit status currently doesn't reflect the status of the
directive, maybe some future version will.

On the other hand, the DCL procedure can capture the output of each directive
and parse it to determine whether it worked.

$ MCC directive target_class instance, argument=value, TO FILE = result.txt
$ SEARCH/NOOUTPUT result.txt "success"
$ IF $STATUS .EQS. "%X00000001" THEN GOTO IT_WORKED

Hope this helps.

Richard
1609.2.coms a must, w/ error detectionJETSAM::WOODCOCKMon Oct 07 1991 14:1718
Hi Steve,

NETops uses procedures for almost all tasks. This includes starting alarms
and gathering statisical info on entities. As far as setting multiple
attributes we don't use MCC at all because our routers are server based and
therefore non-volitile changes are made on load files at the load hosts. MCC
has yet to tackle this (and don't appear to have intentions to in the near
future).

As far as error handling goes we took an approach similar to what -.1 suggests.
A procedure is built to capture stats on multiple entities, it is run and 
outputs are written to .tmp files. From here the .tmp files are reformatted
to a more usable state. But if what is in the .tmp isn't what we want then
I send the .tmp via mail for us to investigate. This approach seems to work ok
but I haven't run it for very long as yet.

best regards,
brad...
1609.3DCL FCL return statusTOOK::CALLANDERMCC = My Constant CompanionWed Oct 23 1991 19:2312
Rich,

MCC FCL does return the status of the last command it ran. So if you run
$mange/enter <mcc command> the return status will be the status of the
last command run. Now note that this means you wil most likely get a
status of mcc_s_response (52854857) or mcc_s_specialized_exception 
(52854873) or mcc_s_common_exception (52854881). Response means the
command worked, exception as you know means an unexpected or error condition
was detected. These returns should be working in the V1.1 kit, and should
allow you to do more intelligent DCL procedures.

jill