Doug Werth writes:

> Jeff,
>
>  _XXXX_ Yes I rely on this undocumented "feature" of LISTF
>
>  ______ No I don't need LISTF to update the EOF on disk
>
>  ______ I don't know yet but I will get back to you.
>
>  There are untold numbers of people who use this feature every day but
don't
>  know it. They do the listf to monitor the progress a process and assume
that
>  it is just reporting what it sees, never considering that it was causing
the
>  file system to update if first.
>
>  I seriously doubt it is used as part of a mission critical application
since
>  so you pointed out that it does not always update the EOF. But removing
this
>  feature will definitely have an impact on many shops, IMHO.
>
>  How does this behavior differ from a finfo,EOF?
>
>  This really brings up another question. Adding on LISTF,ACCESS is a great
>  feature. But couldn't all of this been avoided if HP would have bundled a
>  system monitor in with MPE. It would not have to have all of the features
of
>  Glance, but a single utility to run where you can see where system
resources
>  are going, what files a process has open, what process are holding a file
>  open, locks that are held and who is waiting on them.... Certainly a
system
>  with no real monitor is, to bring up the old car analogies, like getting a
>  new car and being told the Speedometer, odometer and gas gauge cost extra.
>

Jeff,

Let me agree quite strongly with Doug. A great number of our non-technical
customers have discovered this "feature" of LISTF. Many of our report writer
customers print their reports to disc rather than paper -- and because
reports can take a bit of while to execute, they use LISTF to simply see if
things are working. An EOF that doesn't move indicates to them that
something's fouled. An EOF that is moving represents reassurance. That's all
their using it for -- but that's not necessarily a small thing.

Wirt Atmar