Hidden Value details commands and procedures in MPE that can improve your productivity with HP 3000 systems. Get a free NewsWire HP 3000 “3000 for 2000” cap — submit your MPE tip directly to us here at the NewsWire. To get your hat, send your tips to editor@3000newswire.com, or fax them to 512.331.3807.

Edited by John Burke

Is there a way, once I’ve added a default router to my HP 3000, to make it active without a reboot?

Chris Bartram replies:

Sure. Use the command

:netcontrol update=internet;net=LAN1

(substitute the name of your LAN interface for LAN1)

If I’m using “>>” to redirect a file in Append mode, is it also necessary to have a file equation with ACC=APPEND, or is that a “double parking” traffic offense?

HP’s Jeff Vance replies:

AFAIK, there is no need to use ACC=append if you are also specifying “>>filename.” My preference, when using file equations as part of CI I/O redirection, is to specify the minimum needed, e.g., just ;SAVE or ;DISC=nnn etc.

Ed Stouder replies:

It depends on why it stoped. “resumelog” or “switchlog” may fix it.

Did you do a reload or restore to SYS not long ago? If so, purge the logfiles :PURGE LOG####.PUB.SYS then try the resumelog. What can occur is that you already have a LOG#### that is the same number as the next number in the sequence and the system can’t create it.

When I do a full backup I do STORE @.@.@;*TAPE;SHOW;DIRECTORY. Do the files on tape include all HFS files? If so, will RESTORE *TAPE;@.@.@;be sure to restore them back to their original directories? Is it possible to do restore *tape;/usr/local/bin/unzip;show for example? Can you view them from the $stdlist backup or are they hidden and assumed to be included?

Denys Beauchemin replies:

They are there. The output listing should include all the HFS files.

I have an HP-IB 7980 tape drive. I removed the reel, but when I do showdev tape, it still shows as if it is still mounted. How do I reset VOLID?

James Reynolds replies:

DOWN ldev # and then UP ldev# and that should clear it up.

I have an issue to resolve where a customer is using IMAGE/SQL to update an IMAGE database. I don’t think there are any space issues on the IMAGE side, but when they try to fire about 350 individual insert statements to one dataset, the program aborts. If they do less than this in one attempt, it is fine. They DON’T commit the transaction until the end. A number of data sources are involved, so this needs to complete as one transaction. Are there any resource/working-area size issues that might be causing this abort?

HP’s B T Vikram Kumar replies:

If it is pre-6.5, there can be two limits:

1. Each transaction can be only up to 4Mb. However, when the transaction size becomes more than this, one should get a ‘Stalled Transaction’ message, and the transaction will be automatically rolled back.

2. There is a fixed limit for the transaction manager (XM) log, which is 64Mb. When there are many open transactions in the system, this log file also gets filled up. When the total log size reaches about 32Mb (since we may rollback all transactions), you will again get another ‘stalled transaction’ message, and IMAGE rolls back all transactions.

In either case, one should get the stalled transaction message before a process abort.

The above limits have been increased in 6.5. The new limit for transaction size is 32Mb. The default size for XM log size is still 64Mb. However, this can be configured to higher values using VOLUTIL. See the 6.5 Communicator article ‘Large Transactions for IMAGE...’ for further details.

So, when are you going to stop the program from ABORTING?

Vikram replies:

Are you referring to the process abort after stalled transaction? Or are there other program aborts happening?

To address the former, there is a new DBCONTROL Mode-18. If this call is made before the start of a transaction, then when the transaction grows to about 28 Mb in size, IMAGE will send out a soft limit warning message and inhibit any fresh put/delete/updates. On receiving the message, the application can either commit or rollback the transaction and proceed. In this way, one can prevent an individual stalled transaction. However, if there are too many large open transactions and the XM log size has not been increased, all the open transactions will get the stalled transaction message and get rolled back.

I get errors if I define my detail datasets prior to the master datasets that their search items reference. Is there any way around this? If not, why is this limitation imposed?

Brian Duncombe replies:

K.I.S.S. In the “good” old days when computers had less disc space than we now have main memory, one-pass compilers were quite common.

Many people follow the practice of defining all manual masters followed by all automatic masters followed by all details and thus never run into the problems you are encountering.

Alfredo Rego adds:

IMAGE’s requirement that a path’s master dataset must come before the detail dataset is for DBLOAD’s sake, as enforced by DBSCHEMA. DBLOAD loads datasets in sequence. If a detail dataset with a million entries has a path to a MANUAL master, then such manual master must be loaded BEFORE the detail (otherwise, DBLOAD would get lots of errors because the necessary master entries would not exist).

Automatic masters don’t present this problem, because they are not unloaded by DBUNLOAD. Automatic master entries are created on the fly at DBLOAD time.

So, there is no reason to include automatic masters in the restriction. But there are many things that happen without reason.

Bill Cadier replies:

The problem is caused by the fact that the “AOPTIONS” used by ATCUTIL “SET TURBODB” command conflict with the AOPTIONS used to open the database in modes other than 1 or 5. There is an SR filed on this, 5003-225409.

I do not find that it has been fixed in any newer release of IMAGE/SQL. It could very well be due to the fact that it cannot safely be fixed.

The listed workaround is, unfortunately, to ensure that the database is not being accessed or is not being accessed in any mode other than 1 or 5.

B T Vikram Kumar replies:

As of now Allbase/SQL and IMAGE/SQL does not support aliasing. However, the lab is working on a solution to support aliasing.

Can I have “openq @” in my sysstart file, or do I need to have a line for each ldev (like I currently do, which amounts to 40 lines and now I need to add more printers)?

Doug Werth replies:

OPENQ is a valid SYSSTART command and is usually recommended for systart in the form OPENQ LP.