TACL Reference Manual

Glossary
HP NonStop TACL Reference Manual—429513-018
Glossary-10
startup sequence.
startup sequence. A convention for sending and receiving certain messages while starting
a new process. By convention, the new process receives an Open message, followed
by a startup message, an assign message for each ASSIGN in effect, a param
message if there are any PARAMs in effect, and then a Close message string. A type
of argument that some commands and functions accept in place of a variable. A string
can be the name of a variable, text enclosed in quotation marks, or a concatenation of
such entities. The concatenation operator is '+' (the single quotes are part of the
operator). Under control of the QUOTED input format, a quoted string can contain
TACL metacharacters.
STRUCT. A variable that is structured into individual components that can be accessed
individually. Items within a STRUCT can be simple data items, arrays (which can be
further broken down into individual elements), or substructures.
STRUCT item. An element of a structure that can be individually accessed by a name of
the form structure-name:item-name.
substructure. A STRUCT item that is itself a STRUCT.
subvolume. A group of files stored on disk. These files all have the same subvolume
name, but each has a different file ID. A subvolume name consist of one to eight
alphanumeric characters, the first of which must be alphabetic. An example of a
subvolume name is $DATA.INFO. An example of a file name in this subvolume is
$DATA.INFO.RESULTS.
swapping. The process of copying information between physical memory and disk storage.
system process. A process whose primary purpose is to manage system resources rather
than to solve a user’s problem. A system process is essential to a system-provided
service. Failure of a system process often causes the processor module to fail. Most
system processes are automatically created when the processor module is cold
loaded. Contrast with user process.
system time. The time represented by any synchronized processor clock in the system.
template. A string of characters, including the special characters * and ?, used to match
another string of characters. Templates can be used in place of file names and
DEFINE names in some commands and built-in functions.
temporary disk file. A file stored on disk that will be purged automatically as soon as the
process that created it stops.
terminal-simulation process. A process that is made to behave like a terminal file.
text. A set of characters from the ISO 8859.1 character set. The length of text can be
limited by a specific function or command. TACL interprets a text argument as all
remaining text on the line, with leading and trailing sp
aces and end-of-line characters
removed.