Re:

> ...
> > If this item is not already on SIGMPE enhancement request
> > list, I request make it so....  such an obviously good idea that
> > no discussion should be necessary, IMO....
>
> other than, perhaps, if this enhancement were implemented it could break
> existing UDCs and scripts.

and...it *SHOULD* break them!

The primary exception most people would propose is something like:

   HPxxxx  exists on MPE/iX 7.0

   we want to adapt our jobs/sessions/cmds/udcs to use HPxxxx now (on
   6.0 or 6.5), so we'll just setup HPxxxx today in a system-wide logon
   UDC (which we'll remove when we move to 7.0)

Sorry...that's not a good excuse.  Instead, they should use:

   LOCALxxxx
   And set it up in the system-wide logon UDC, and on 7.0, that
   setup is changed to:  setvar LOCALxxxx HPxxxxx

ANYTHING else is lying...it's claiming that HPxxxx actually exists on
6.0 or 6.5.

Break bad scripts now...don't encourage users to make mistakes.

Jeff himself has been fouled up because we didn't have this protection!
How many other people have, too?
How many people have made critical errors because of minor typos,
like:

    ...job stream with HPAUTOCONT true...
    ...
    setvar hpautocontinue false
    ...
    ...something that might fail....
    ...
    purge critical.data

The above would nicely set the *USER* variable "HPAUTOCONTINUE", but
would not reset the *HP* variable "HPAUTOCONT" ... potentially
leading to disastrous results!

No...there's only one thing to do: prevent users from creating new
variables with the prefix "HP".  Like flossing, it's something that
some people might not like, but that they'll benefit from!

Stan Sieler                                           [log in to unmask]
www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html          www.allegro.com/sieler