JD Edwards Sponsor Message

Hidden Value details commands and procedures in MPE that can improve your productivity with HP 3000 systems. Send your tips to john@burke-consulting.com, or fax them to 512.331.3807.

Edited by John Burke

I understand when using the SETCOUNTER command with a MAX value that once MAX is reached, it starts back at BASE. For example, doing a SETCOUNTER OUTSP;BASE=1;MAX=9999 would start the output spool file numbers over at 1 and set a maximum value of 9999. At 10,000, it starts back at 1 or at the first available number after 1. But what happens if all the numbers between BASE and MAX are in use?

Jeff Vance replies:
I have access to code but no time to look right now. My guess is that the counter will begin at MAX+1. However, we also have to handle the case where all available numbers are taken, up through the absolute maximum. In that case you’d probably get a JSMAIN error related to being out of system resources.

John Burke adds:
I went ahead and tested it for everyone’s edification. Jeff’s guess is correct. If the spooler runs out of available numbers below MAX, it just keeps going with the next available number above MAX.

I have jobs that are in a WAIT state. The JOBFENCE is at 2 and the INPRI of the jobs are 8. What can I do?

James Reynolds replies:
Issue the OPENQ @ command.

I have a Master dataset that is rather large. In order to improve the rather high number of secondaries, I thought I might try turning on MDX. But I seem to remember that this can’t be done on Jumbo datasets. What is the story?

Rene Woc replies:
MDX on master datasets larger than 4 gigabytes is available with Large File Datasets (LFDS). LFDS is part of the TurboIMAGE C.10.04 enhancements on MPE/iX 7.5. You cannot use MDX on jumbo datasets.

We have recently received following messages on the console when booting our system:
MPS: installed device clone as major 1
MPS: installed device sad as major 121
MPS: installed device pipe as major 137
MPS: installed module sw2proc
What do these MPS messages stand for?

Andreas Schmidt replies, quoting HP Support Pages:
These messages appear on the console the first time pipes are used. They are generated by the system, not the POSIX shell and utilities. The message is normal and only occurs once per system boot.

Gavin Scott adds:
I would hazard a guess that “MPS” is “Mentat Portable Streams,” the SYSTEM V STREAMS library that HP licensed for use in implementing named pipes and similar functionality in MPE. These messages will always be produced the first time after boot-up that something invokes the Streams subsystem by using a named pipe etc.

The MPS code in MPE is one of the few components of the operating system not entirely owned by HP, and as such it is one of the complicating factors for any future OpenMPE initiatives or alternative MPE licensing.

The MPS startup messages are normal and you should ignore them.

We have an N-220 single CPU. The current network card runs several DTCs, which limits us to 10Mb. If we were to add a second card, leave the DTCs and serial devices on the first card, and move the pure network connections to a second card at 100mb, are there any down sides we should know about? We are currently running MPE/iX 7.0.

Robert Schlosser and John Clogg reply:
You can configure the network card to 100mb and place the DTC on a switch with its segment running at 10b.

We just added a gateway to our HP 3000. I believe there is a way of refreshing the system’s networking without re-booting. What’s the command?

Jeff Kell replies
:NETCONTROL NET=netname;UPDATE=ALL

Specify your own configured ‘netname’, usually LAN1.

Evidently Query will only allow me 256 characters as output using the REPORT command. Can I change this limit?

John Hornberger replies:
I just checked on docs.hp.com and found out that 256 is the design limit for output line length.

To view all of Query’s other limits please check the following URL: docs.hp.com/mpeix/onlinedocs/32650-90889/32650-90889.html

Expand the contents listing for “QUERY/3000 Specifications” and then click on the “Limits Used By Query” subitem.

Paul Scot suggests a workaround:
You can accomplish this by “splitting” your output onto two or more lines, then deblocking the output with FCOPY after it is written to disk.

We need to prevent update access to small subset of datasets of a large database during a limited period without at the same time preventing read access. The bulk of the database should behave normally. How can we do this?

Mark Wonsil replies:
You need to change the dataset security with a third-party database maintenance tool.

I have a file that has nulls that need to be stripped. Is there a way in Quad to do this?

Quad creator Jim Kramer replies:
To strip nulls using Quad you would say

/c %0 to :: all

or (shorthand)

/c %0 :: a. Using hex and octal in strings is covered under the Strings topic in Help.