Guardian User's Guide

Creating and Using DEFINEs

Guardian User’s Guide—425266-001

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Using a DEFINE

A DEFINE lets you specify information for a process before you start the process.

Considerations When Using DEFINEs

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The TACL program provides commands with which you create, list, modify, and

delete your DEFINEs.

•

TACL stores DEFINEs in its process file segment (PFS). When you start a process

from TACL, you can specify whether your DEFINEs are propagated to the new

process with the DEFMODE attribute setting.

•

A DEFINE remains in effect only for the current TACL session. After you log off,

the DEFINE no longer exists. (The TACL #DEFINESAVE and

#DEFINERESTORE built-in functions let you save a DEFINE during one TACL

session and then restore the DEFINE during a subsequent session. See the TACL

Reference Manual for information about TACL built-in functions.)

•

If you start a process and then create a DEFINE for this process, the DEFINE has no

effect on the process. You must create the DEFINE before you start the process.

•

You can store the commands that create a DEFINE in a command file. When you

want to use the DEFINE, you simply execute the command file. You can also edit

the command file if you want to change the DEFINE.

DEFINE Names

A DEFINE name is a logical name that:

•

Contains from 2 to 24 characters.

•

The first character must be an equal sign (=).

•

The second character must be a letter.

•

The remaining characters can be letters, numbers, hyphens (-), underscores (_), or

circumflexes (^).

•

When specified as the value of a system procedure parameter that has a fixed length

of 24 characters, a DEFINE name must be left-justified in the DEFINE name buffer

and padded on the right with blanks.

Uppercase and lowercase letters in a DEFINE name are equivalent.

Note. Compaq reserves all DEFINE names beginning with an equal sign and underscore (=_).

Do not use DEFINE names that begin with this two-character string.