Winston Kriger writes...
...
> Unfortunately, unless something has changed recently, the Pascal/iX
(Modcal)
> compiler that is supplied to customers does not include the "Big File"
> enhancements that were added for MPE/iX 6.5 and later versions.  As I
> recall, these enhancements facilitate fast moves across inter-space
> boundaries and perhaps some other "tricks" used to simulate 64-bit flat
> addressing used for mapped access to >4GB files.  I and others have
> requested for several years that this enhanced compiler be released as an
> update; but unless something magical has happened, it hasn't happened yet.
> This situation kind of reminds me of  the SPL-II fiasco in the MPE-5 days.
> In the spirit of "partnership",  perhaps now is the time to "share" both
of
> these internally used compilers along with any documentation that exists.
...

The main reason that we haven't released the "large file enhanced Pascal/iX
compiler" to our customers is because such a thing doesn't exist. No changes
were made to the compiler to support large files (files whose file limit is
greater than 4GB).

Instead, I chose to implement this support via a language neutral mechanism
- intrinsics. These intrinsics were introduced and made available in release
6.5 and are documented in the 6.5 Communicator as well as the Intrinsics
Reference Manual. Look for the following intrinsics:

  HPFADDTOPOINTER
  HPFFILLDATA
  HPFMOVEDATA
  HPFMOVEDATALTOR
  HPFMOVEDATARTOL

With these intrinsics (and HPFOPEN) you can do pointer manipulation and data
movement with Pascal, C, or even COBOL and FORTRAN.

It would be a much more interesting story if we could somehow blame Carly or
"stupid decisions" by HP management for not making this imaginary compiler
available. The reality is much more mundane.

Craig Fairchild
MPE/iX File System Architect
Large File Project Lead

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