R60
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Posts: 32
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Post by R60 on Mar 5, 2015 15:48:44 GMT -5
Unable to select a directory/folder in File Manager when the directory name contains the character “,”.
When a directory/folder with the name e.g. “Folder A,B” is selected by command “s” within the File Manager, it’s contents will not be displayed. Only the line with “—End of List –“ appears. The problem must be the character “,”, used as a delimiter between characters “A” and “B”. If character ‘blank’ or “_” is used, everthing is fine. But for files with the character “,” in the filename (e.g. “New Text Document A,B.txt”) there is no problem – they can be edited or browsed. The bug only occurs for directory/folder names, but not for file names.
For more info see attached PDF file. ...and sorry for the bad english...
SPFLite Req_001.pdf (289.41 KB)
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R60
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Post by R60 on Mar 6, 2015 5:55:01 GMT -5
The problem also applies to DIR names with a "." in it. This is big stuff, because that's the way I simulate zOS data set names and PO and PDS/E data sets. A zOS PDS/E data set with name "MY.MVS.PDSE.DATA.SET.XYZ" is within windows a directory with the same name, holding files with 8 character long names (equ to the members within a PO or PDS/E data set. I'm testing the editor and it works from the beginning (not reading any docu about SPFLite before, because I know IBMs TSO/ISPF very well since round about 30 years). May be I could use it. Okay, there is some special behavior - I wil tell you later on... And it's also not 100% compatible...may be later on... But here is the big BUT: A tool like the 'File Manager' is required to work in an easy way with the files on the PC (like ISPF/PDF dialog manager.). The functions provided by the SPFLite File Manager are okay to simulate (a small) ISPF 3.4 behavior, but it should work. The next days I try to continue my SPFLite testing...
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R60
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Post by R60 on Mar 6, 2015 8:47:01 GMT -5
Hi Robert, thx for quick answer/question. I'm 6 hours ahead of you...
Yes, I do a File Manager browse. Have a look to the attached PDF file and you will see the drive name and the directory names I have created for my small test with SPFLite.
Fact is, that I have a lot of windows directory (folder) names with a "." in their name (because of keeping the original/or modified name of the zOS (Host) data set names.
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R60
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Posts: 32
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Post by R60 on Mar 6, 2015 15:08:06 GMT -5
Thx Robert (this forum ('You') is very fast). Thx for your advice, I know it very well. And btw you say Unix/Linux...not me. Some of my former Unix/Linux colleagues do things like this. They use a lot of 'bypassing' stuff instead of finding solutions. E.g. they don't use some chars because they try to avoid quoting...and so on...and so on...
But I'm coming from a IBM z/OS Mainframe Environment, where 'bypassing' is not the very common solution... This is also the reason why I'm looking for a EDITOR, which is mainframe compatible. (...other 'people' are very happy using VI and other crazy stuff...)
Sorry for this words, but I don't like to rename my directories. May be, you could find a solution (especially for directories with a dot in the name). Btw: I like your editor (okay, some behavior must be discussed later) from the first moment on, but it must be possible for me to navigate through my libraries to edit the files by using the File Manager of SPFLite.
Once again - sorry for my opinion and my bad English, but I hope you and/or George find a solution. Then I have a lot more stuff for you depending to your editor's behavior - don't be afraid, we can talk about all this...
Some personal words: Thank you very much for the very quick response. May be, I'm the problem, because I'm coming from an IBM z/OS Mainframe Environment, so I have some expectations (...and VI is not an EDITOR !...). I'm looking forward reading your reply. Vielen Dank und Gruesse aus Germany.
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R60
Freshman Member
Posts: 32
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Post by R60 on Mar 6, 2015 16:03:25 GMT -5
Hi Robert, some additional infos: After re-reading this thread, I do this test for you...
You say "A file with a comma in it is almost unusable in any Windows, Unix or Linux command line."
Now let's concentrate on Windows: I open the Windows Command Prompt and type the command
XCOPY "E:\SPFLite.error,1" "E:\target" /E /F /H
Everything works fine, all of the 3 sub-folders and files in it are copied to the target folder (named 'target').
You see, the source directory is the original directory from my previous test, but renamed to "SPFLite.error,1". Now the name contains a "." and "," in it. I use this kind of commands in some batch-scripts to 'save/backup' some of my libraries.
So: "I'm not asking for trouble and life is not very difficult for myself if I do so".
Other commands also work very well with this kind of directory names.
Please remember, I play with SPFLite only a couple of hours and I like it (!), so I'm not willing to give up resistance...
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R60
Freshman Member
Posts: 32
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Post by R60 on Mar 6, 2015 16:29:30 GMT -5
Alright, ...and I'm smiling a little bit...
Yes, you are right and I give you (or George) the time to find a solution (if possible).
Please keep me informed...
BTW: Interested in other stuff, I found during my small test ?
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Post by George on Mar 7, 2015 13:33:03 GMT -5
R60: Robert: My apologies for not seeing this thread sooner. One problem the forums have is that if there are two new items in the same group and you view one of them, the icon stops showing that there are new posts, even though there is one you haven't seen yet.
Anyway, I'm afraid to say this is going to be a big change to correct.
Why? Because I simply did not realize that a comma was an allowable character in a file name.
Why is this a problem? Because FM uses the comma as a delimiter in the FLIST entries. And even though you may be browsing the file system by entering the filepath in the screen entry field, internally it gets fudged up and dropped into the same path that processes FLIST contents.
This is entirely my error, I thought comma was a 'safe' delimiter. So now I have to find another one to use.
Any suggestions? Semi-colon is out, its already used to separate file masks. And it should be a normal visible character since FLISTs can be created manually.
How about the | character?
George
P.S. for R60: Let us know about ISPF incompatibility. We've tried to be consistent, but be aware, we haven't, and won't do this slavishly, it has to make some sense. And some of IBM's decisions as to how things are done are simply dumb.
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R60
Freshman Member
Posts: 32
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Post by R60 on Mar 7, 2015 14:27:02 GMT -5
Hi George,
1) your question: Yes/okay, because the | char is not valid for Windows file/dir names. (For safety and because your and my char's are sometimes not the same (...6 hours ahead of you...). If your char | is X'7C' ASCII ?)
2) If you look at my 2nd post, my biggest problem is the dot "." character, because this is the way of simulating host filenames like MY.PRIVATE.MVS.LIB and so on... The dot is used under z/OS as the delimiter between the single max. 8 char data set qualifiers (...as you know...) to form the max. 44 char long data set name. I like to use them (or with a small modification) under Windows - and I have a lot of them... I have a limited number of files with a "," in the name and I'm willing to rename. But files with the dot is my real problem (sorry, discovered later, reason for 2nd post). Nice if you find a solution for the dot. But if you think about using a "|" internally for your processing, we are on a good way (this may remove the "," and "." problem).
Give me some more hours, and you will find me also on your 'Suggestions' and 'Surveys' board.
...looking forward to your next post...
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Post by George on Mar 7, 2015 14:57:34 GMT -5
R60: I went and checked out the period problem. And I see nothing wrong. I created directories with periods, and put file names with periods within them, and all seems well. See the attached screenshot. Maybe I'm not understanding the problem. Can you explain further? George
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Post by George on Mar 8, 2015 11:16:10 GMT -5
Robert: Well to use quotes, still means a conversion (one time) of old FLIST entries as they are encountered. And it's just as simple to convert the commas to |. The conversion would have to assume there are no filenames with embedded commas presently. That has to be true since we know they don't work.
The conversion simply has to check for | characters (meaning it's in the new format) and if not, do a simple conversion of all commas to |. The real work is altering all the internal places where any parsing is done, or it's reverse process to write FLISTs out.
George
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R60
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Posts: 32
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Post by R60 on Mar 8, 2015 15:58:08 GMT -5
George: Alright. See your test with dots within the DIR name - and that you don't have any problems. Surprise, surprise...but i have problems with it ! This message has been written by using my tablet, because I'm away from my computers and more investigation is required. Just a memo: May be the problem depends on our 'individual' environment My environment is Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. But with language in english (which is extraordinary for Germany) and/but with char "," for decimal number delimiter and the char "." as thousand seperator. This is very common and the standard in Germany but may differ to standard 'english' settings. You can say, that I'm running german standards - but with english language. May be, this could be the problem I have also access to a Win7 Home... (... i don't know computer, but i'm able to find out...) totally set to a typically german environment. So i need some more time for more test on my Win7 Ultimate, the Win7 Home... and may be on some WinXP Prof computers. Stay tuned, more will come...
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R60
Freshman Member
Posts: 32
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Post by R60 on Mar 8, 2015 15:59:08 GMT -5
George: Alright. See your test with dots within the DIR name - and that you don't have any problems. Surprise, surprise...but i have problems with it ! This message has been written by using my tablet, because I'm away from my computers and more investigation is required. Just a memo: May be the problem depends on our 'individual' environment My environment is Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. But with language in english (which is extraordinary for Germany) and/but with char "," for decimal number delimiter and the char "." as thousand seperator. This is very common and the standard in Germany but may differ to standard 'english' settings. You can say, that I'm running german standards - but with english language. May be, this could be the problem I have also access to a Win7 Home... (... i don't know computer, but i'm able to find out...) totally set to a typically german environment. So i need some more time for more test on my Win7 Ultimate, the Win7 Home... and may be on some WinXP Prof computers. Stay tuned, more will come...
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R60
Freshman Member
Posts: 32
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Post by R60 on Mar 8, 2015 16:07:04 GMT -5
sorry for the double post (my fault), i was using a tablet device
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R60
Freshman Member
Posts: 32
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Post by R60 on Mar 8, 2015 16:54:52 GMT -5
Robert: during review of this thread... You say "I am wondering if it only happens if there is both dots and commas ?"
That's not true. It happens if there is a dot or comma (or, of course both).
...just for clarification...
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Post by George on Mar 9, 2015 12:24:29 GMT -5
R60: The language settings German/English or comma/decimal settings will have no bearing on the way things are parsed. Just a FYI.
Robert: Yes, maintaining levels of parse engines forever (and all the associated routines to convert to the current level) might be the right solution in a perfect world, but lets be real, for SPFLite? The complete code to load and fully parse an FLIST is about 25 lines, I'd hate to think how bloated a versioned equivalent would be. And we'd also have to document the header so people could still create their own FLISTS from other sources. Somehow I don't think so.
George
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