From:	MERC::"uunet!CRVAX.SRI.COM!RELAY-INFO-VAX" 28-DEC-1992 20:47 28-DEC-1992 20:47:00.00
To:	info-vax@kl.sri.com
CC:	
Subj:	Re: Alternative callable editors in MAIL?



In article <1992Dec25.234751.5910@ais.com>, bruce@ais.com (Bruce C. Wright) writes...
>In article <34147@twics.co.jp>, burress@twics.co.jp (Tim Burress) writes:
[...]
>> So my question is whether there is a procedure for installing a different
>> callable editor, and having MAIL use that one instead of EDT.  I know it's a
>> longshot, but the alternative is using the callable mail routines to write my
>> own mailer, and it's not how I planned to spend my holiday.
> 
>You can very often set things up so that almost any editor can be used as
>a callable editor in MAIL.  For example, suppose you have a locally-written
>editor named XYZ -- what you need to do to make it callable from MAIL is:
[...]
>    2)  Have a procedure named XYZ$EDIT in the sharable image.  The
>	arguments should look like the callable EDT interface routine
>	named EDT$EDIT, although I think you can just get by with 2
>	arguments for callable MAIL (input_file, output_file).  Note
>	that the arguments are passed by descriptor!!  This procedure
>	should start up the editor on input_file and write it to
>	output_file when done.  You'll probably want to do the image
>	`properly' with a transfer vector and so forth, this often 
>	makes things simpler to deal with when things change.

If the editor is named XYZ, then the entry point needs to be named
XYZ$XYZ, not XYZ$EDIT.   (The entry points for some popular editors
are TPU$TPU, LSE$LSE, and TECO$TECO.)

>
[...]
>    5)	Within MAIL, do a SET EDITOR XYZ (and DON'T set the MAIL$EDIT
>	logical name, that will override the SET EDITOR command when MAIL
>	starts up and the users will need to do an explicit SET EDITOR
>	every time they get into MAIL).

You can also use

    $ DEFINE MAIL$EDIT CALLABLE_XYZ

>[...]

-- --
 Dave C.                          cantor@star.enet.dec.com
 Digital Equipment Corp., Nashua, NH  03062, USA
  The views expressed herein are my own, except where attributed to 
  someone else.  They are neither the opinion of, nor the responsibility 
  of, Digital Equipment Corporation.