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

DEFINEs are automatically passed to the new Guardian process from its parent process when the
new process is created. You can use DEFINEs to pass attributes to a process to provide one of the
following:
• An alternate name for accessing a file
• A list of subvolumes to search for a filename
• A simple means of passing attributes to the spooler subsystem
• A simple means of setting up attributes for labeled tape processing
You can use DEFINEs interactively using TACL, or you can work with DEFINEs programmatically.
For detailed information on using DEFINEs interactively, refer to the Guardian User’s Guide; for
detailed information on using DEFINEs programmatically, refer to the Guardian Programmer’s
Guide.
If the defmode on parameter is set for the gtacl or OSH utility, all Guardian DEFINE values of
the process executing the utility are inherited by the child process. If the defmode off parameter
is set for the gtacl or OSH utility, only the Guardian =_DEFAULTS DEFINE values inherited by
OSH are inherited by the child process. Refer to the gtacl(1) and osh(1) reference pages
either online or in the Open System Services Shell and Utilities Reference Manual for the details
on the defmode parameter settings.
For the OSH utility, all Guardian environment PARAMs are converted into OSS environment
variables for the child process, but no Guardian environment ASSIGN values are passed to the
child process. For more information on Guardian PARAMs (HOME, LOGNAME, PATH, and PWD)
in the OSS environment, see the discussion of Guardian environment variables and the process
environment in the osh(1) online reference page.
The following table shows the mapping of the interactive Guardian DEFINEs to the OSS shell define
commands:
DEFINE Command PurposeOSS Shell CommandGuardian DEFINE
Creates new DEFINEs.add_defineADD DEFINE
Deletes DEFINEs.del_defineDELETE DEFINE
Displays DEFINE attributes and values.info_defineINFO DEFINE
Restores DEFINE attributes to their initial
settings.
reset_defineRESET DEFINE
Sets DEFINE attribute values.set_defineSET DEFINE
Displays DEFINE attributes and values.show_defineSHOW DEFINE
NOTE: The names of Guardian DEFINEs begin with an equal sign (=) and must be followed by
a letter. Special characters such as $, \, and so forth, must be preceded by a backslash (\).
In the following example, the set_define command establishes an unnamed DEFINE attribute
set that contains the attributes common to two DEFINEs to be created. (The class SPOOL is not
required in this command.)
set_define class=spool COPIES=1 MAXPRINTPAGES=100
show_define
CLASS = SPOOL
COPIES = 1
MAXPRINTPAGES = 100
add_define =LETTER LOC=LASER01 PAGESIZE=66
add_define =LEGAL LOC=LASER02 PAGESIZE=84
58 Interoperating Between User Environments