Open System Services Porting Guide (G06.29+, H06.06+, J06.03+)

Guide for details about programming for the OSS and Guardian environments. Interoperability
discussions in those guides include:
• Interoperability between the OSS API and Guardian API (functions and macros in the OSS
and Guardian C run-time libraries)
• Manipulating OSS and Guardian objects
• Writing mixed-module programs
See also Chapter 5 (page 71), for various topics of interoperability between the OSS and Guardian
environments.
Scopes of Interoperability
There are a number of views of interoperability between the OSS and Guardian environments.
They can be divided into three job responsibilities or audiences:
• Those who develop application program interfaces (APIs), applications, and other programs.
To perform their jobs, this group relies on development tools including editors, development
utilities, compilers, linkers, optimizers, debuggers, and performance analyzers. They work
with entities such as run-time libraries, files, functions, processes, and so forth. For more
information on these topics and this scope of interoperability, refer to the list of related
programming guides in “Related Information” (page 18).
• Those who provide system support and maintenance. This group manages and controls the
production, change, performance, problems, and daily system operations of large systems
and networks. To perform their jobs, this group relies on utilities, applications, tools, and many
other facilities. They work with logs (audit, error, operator), physical devices (terminals, printers,
tape drives, small and large computers), and many other communications and distributed
computing devices. For more information on these topics and this scope of interoperability,
refer to the Open System Services Management and Operations Guide.
• Those who use a NonStop system or other system to perform their daily job responsibilities,
which can be any task related to developing code or managing computer systems. This group,
usually called “users,” works mostly with the files and interactive command interfaces of the
OSS and Guardian environments.
The remainder of This chapter covers interoperating between user environments. For more
information on this scope of interoperability, refer to the Open System Services User’s Guide.
The OSS User Environment
This subsection focuses on the factors that affect the operation of the OSS shell. It includes an
overview of OSS shell operations: start-up files, shell variables, functions, command settings, and
command editing modes. Refer to the Open System Services User’s Guide for detailed information
on working with the OSS shell.
OSS Shell
Most UNIX systems provide three shells for the interactive user: the Korn, Bourne, and C shells.
The OSS shell is compliant with the POSIX.2 standard (which is based on the Korn shell). It has
the same programming syntax as the Bourne shell but adds new facilities for better interactive use.
Factors Affecting Shell Operation
The factors described in the following subsections affect shell operation for the interactive OSS
user:
• “Shell Start-Up Files” (page 55)
• “Option Values” (page 55)
• “Variable Values” (page 55)
54 Interoperating Between User Environments