From:	MERC::"uunet!CRVAX.SRI.COM!RELAY-INFO-VAX"  1-SEP-1992 11:52:16.33
To:	info-vax@kl.sri.com
CC:	
Subj:	Re: at the risk of drawing severe flamage - q's about VMS/DC

In <1992Aug31.094150.584@glas.rtsg.mot.com> waider@glas.rtsg.mot.com writes:

> I'm currently working with a Unix system and will soon be returning (after
> Christmas) to a VAX 8350 (8530??) running VMS 5.3 ish. What I want to know
> is if the vanilla VMS comes with any feature resembling a Unix pipe? To any
> who may be unfamiliar with the concept, it's a means of connecting the output
> of one program/command directly to another so for instance, you could run a
> file through sort to sort it and then put the output through a program to
> throw away doubles; on Unix, this is simply a matter of piping sort's output
> to the input of the second prog, while the only way I'm aware of on VMS to do
> this would by to /OUTPUT=SYS$SCRATCH:TEMPFILE and then read TEMPFILE into the
> next program.

VMS 5.5 offers a POSIX-shell which is nearly (exactly?) an AT&T ksh, but
it's awful slow...

I think the best solution for you would be to use PIPE.
PIPE is a pipe-emulator in DCL and works nearly the same way unix does.

In my PIPE-distribution you will also find: sed, gawk, perl, grep,
path-execution etc

    info.rz.uni-ulm.de (134.60.1.125)  pub/VMS/misc


Here an extract from the pipe-help:


PIPE

  Syntax:  PIPE [ <fromfile] [ +][ ?][command...] [""][#][args][#][""]
                [&LINE] [ >tofile] [>>tofile] [ | ...] [ ; ...]


    allows one to combine DCL commands without worrying about temporary
    intermediate files, eg:

             $ pipe show user/full | catch m23 >m23.dat

     shows only users in M23 and stores it in file m23.dat

     PIPE will enter "interactive" mode if you type "$ PIPE" without
     arguments.  When used in this way, it displays the "|" prompt,
     all input is processed by PIPE for operators, and doubling quotation
     marks ("") is not required.



  Additional information available:

  AFTER      AWK        CATCH      COLUMNS    COMBINE    COUNT      DIRECTORY
  DUPS       ECHO       F$ELEMENT  EXTRACT    F$EXTR     F$ED       FIL2DIR
  FIND       GREP       ITEM       JUSTIFY    LS         MAKE       NOCTRL
  NODUPS     NOEMPTY    MORE       REPLACE    REPORT     SED        SKIP
  SORT       SPLIT      TAIL       TALLY      TEE        TOTAL      TRIM
  UNIQ       WC         Debugging  Examples   Ideas      Operators

@TOOLS PIPE Subtopic? ex

PIPE

  Examples

       PIPE allows:

       o  combining DCL commands to operate data without worrying about
          temporary intermediate files, eg:

               $ pipe SHOW LOGICALS * |catch TT,TX |sort >dev.dat
                 shows only logicals pointing directly to TT and TX devices

       o  using wildcard filespecs for any command, eg:

               $ pipe dir *.FOR | +edit
                 edits every .FOR file.

               The '+' switches the mode to 'execute with data as args' from
               the default 'execute with data as input'.

       o  executing multiple commands sequentially, as in:

               $ pipe show users > OPA0: ;sho sys >OPA0:

       o  redirecting output for programs which don't normally
          support this, eg:

               $ pipe auth sho brief * >aut.dat

       o  more selective outputs from programs, eg:

               $ p show system |catch acp,symb
               show only ACPs and SYMBIONTs

               $ pipe SYSGEN SHO/ALL | catch LGI

       o  an effective /CONFIRM option on commands that don't otherwise
          allow it (like COPY), eg:

               $ pipe dir foo*/exc:.exe | ?copy &LINE dua1:[archives]


\  Ulli 'Framstag' Horlacher    \    psi%0262450502601::rzmain::orakel  \
 \  Student consultant VAX/VMS and networks   \  orakel@dulruu51.bitnet  \
  \  Rechenzentrum  Universitaet Ulm  Germany  \    orakel@rz.uni-ulm.de  \
   \  "With mainframes you just can do nonsense, with PCs not even that."  \