Guardian Procedure Calls Reference Manual

Process Handles
A process handle is a ten-word structure that identifies a single named or unnamed process.
CAUTION: The format of a process handle is defined by HP and is subject to change in future
RVUs. Applications should not try to extract information (such as processor or PIN) from a process
handle except by using a system procedure such as PROCESSHANDLE_DECOMPOSE_.
A process handle contains this information about a process:
• The PIN, which identifies the process within a processor.
• The processor number, which identifies the processor in which the process is running.
• The node number, which identifies the node within a network.
• The sequence (or verifier) number, which allows the system to uniquely identify a process over
its lifetime.
• The process pair index, which allows the system to locate the other member of a named
process pair and to look up the process' name.
• The type field, which indicates characteristics of the process (for example, whether the process
is named or unnamed).
A process handle that contains -1 in each word is called a null process handle.
C-Series Syntax
This subsection summarizes the file name syntax that is supported in C-series RVUs and is still
supported in the system procedures carried over from the C series. It describes both the external
and internal forms of disk file names and nondisk file names. It also includes the syntax for process
file names and process IDs.
Most of the procedure calls that support C-series file name syntax are marked in this manual as
"superseded" and are listed in Appendix G: Superseded Guardian Procedure Calls and Their
Replacements.
External File Names
The external form of a file name is typically used when the user specifies a file name to a command
interpreter or when the system displays a file name to the user. Both disk files and nondisk files
can be represented by external file names.
An external file name consists of one or more parts, where adjacent parts are separated by a
period. The system does not distinguish between uppercase and lowercase alphabetic characters
in a file name. If all the optional left-hand parts of an external file name are present, it is called a
fully qualified file name; if any of the optional left-hand parts are missing, it is called a partially
qualified file name.
Disk File Names
The syntax for the external form of a disk file name is:
[system.][volume.][subvol.]file-id
or
[system.][volume.]temp-file-id
system
specifies the name of the system on which the file resides. A system name consists of a backslash
(\) followed by one to seven alphanumeric characters; the first alphanumeric character must
be a letter.
When system is included in a file name, it is called a network file name; when system is
not included, it is called a local file name.
1540 File Names and Process Identifiers