Re:

> I must have accidentally close file #0 at one point because I've 
> successfully open it before. Actually this may help me with my current 
> challenge, trying to tell VSHOWFORM to write to a file other than a 
> terminal. I've tried saving FILEN of the comarea, opening a disc file 
> and moving that fnum to filen, no go. Is VSHOWFORM hard coded to write 
> to #0 or #1? If so, then if I close (FCLOSE(0,0,0)) file #0 or #1, and 
> then open a disc file, and call VSHOWFORM, umm?

I doubt that VSHOWFORM is "hard coded" to write to file # 0 or 1, per se.
It is likely that it's writing to $STDLIST (which happens to be file 1).

Looking at VSHOWFORM, I see calls to Pascal's "WRITELN", so there's a chance
that you could redirect the file "OUTPUT" (the default file Pascal code
opens) to something.  However, I don't know if a COBOL mainline calls the
Pascal file initialization code, and I don't know what P_WRITELN does if
that code hasn't been called (probably uses file 1 or opens OUTPUT).

But...here's what I'd do.  I'd take a program that successfully calls 
VSHOWFORM and do:  set a Debug breakpoint at VSHOWFORM.  When hit,
set a breakpoint at P_WRITELN.  When hit, set a breakpoint at FWRITE.
When hit, look at r26 to see which file number is being used.  If it's
1, then you can do:  close 1, fopen to get 1 assigned, VSHOWFORM, close 1,
re-open 1 as $stdlist ... and *probably* not get into trouble :)

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

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *