I have had an idea since we first introduced POSIX on MPE that is similar to
Michael's. Here are my thoughts:

1) allowing HPFOPEN to accept POSIX syntax filenames does not mean the
calling program
will actually work the way you expect.  It may not have internal arrays
large enough
to hold 1024 character pathnames, it may not accept bytestream files, it may
recognize
certain valid POSIX filename characters as application-specific meta
characters.

2) More than HPFOPEN would need to recognize this new variable: FRENAME,
FLABELINFO,
FOPEN, FPARSE, CATOPEN, CREATEPROCESS, HPGETPROCPLABLE, HPFIRSTLIBRARY,
AIFs, etc.
all accept a filename arguments.

3) Program that may not be POSIX-ready have this feature enabled by default
and
cannot disable it reliably. A program can "setvar varname,default_value" but
what
if the program aborts, the user is left with the wrong setting.

4) Since variables cannot be scoped locally, scripts will have to save the
old setting,
set a new value reinstate the original value prior to ending, and hope they
don't get
terminated early...just like is done for HPMSGFENCE and a few other CI
variables.


The approach outlined by Michael is highly leveraged, in that changes in a
few places
in the OS can affect thousands of applications and tools, especially since
these
programs would not need to try alternative names.  A less leveraged
variation on his
idea would be to have the CI only recognize this new variable.  The CI could
translate the name supplied to the desired syntax, try the open and if
appropriate
try again with a new name translation.  This approach requires more effort
since the CI has commands in NM and CM, and each command would need new
logic added.

My two cents worth...

Jeff Vance, CSY