Thanks Cary.  Works like a champ.  Excuse the ignorance on the differences between MPEX and MPE/iX. I'm an old VMS guy who's still getting used to the idea of buying extensions to the operating systems.

>>> Cary A Marshall <[log in to unmask]> 05/06 12:06 PM >>>
Robert,

The 'printo' command is a MPEX, not MPE/iX command.  However, you can use
the MPEX print command to search the $stdlist spool file created by job
#j10343.  For example, if the job created spool file #o12345, then the
syntax would be:
%print #o12345.out.hpspool ;search=cl "cierr" or "*w" or "#j" or "*e"

To find the spool files create by the job, you can use another MPEX command:
%showout @[log in to unmask]@(spool.jobnumber= 10343)

Hope this helps....Cary

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Pastor [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 1999 5:15 AM
To: [log in to unmask] 
Subject: search output file for strings prefixed by special characters


I'm trying to look for errors in a job stream automatically using the
following command:

printo #j10343 ;search=cl "cierr" or "*w" or "#j" or "*e"

MPE/ix is interpreting the "*" as a prefix and doesn't return any errors
starting w/ *"  How can I look for a string  preceded (or trailed) by an
"*"?

TIA for your help.