SETCATALOG

Operation Notes

The SETCATALOG command allows you to catalog user-defined commands.

When you set your own UDCs, the change takes place in your UDC catalog immediately. If you specify the ACCOUNT or SYSTEM parameter, your UDC catalog is changed immediately, but other users in your account or system must log on again in order to have those changes available to them. If you set a UDC and specify another user (USER=), that user must log on again in order to have the changes available.

The ability to delete or append files is particularly useful because, although most UDC files do not change, new UDC commands are frequently added or modified. Using the DELETE or APPEND parameter allows you to make changes without incurring the overhead of recataloging the entire directory for every change. Grouping UDC files into functions further reduces the work involved in modifying UDCs.

The RECURSION option relieves the user of having to define a particular command more than once in a catalog set, and from having to maintain a particular order for commands within a catalog set. Refer to the discussion on options in "User Commands" in Using the HP 3000 Series 900: Advanced Skills.

If SETCATALOG is used in a UDC, all valid commands through and including the SETCATALOG command execute. But execution of the UDC terminates after the execution of the SETCATALOG command. Commands that follow do not execute. The SETCATALOG command does not have this effect when executed in a command file.

The SETCATALOG command may be invoked only from the logon command interpreter (user main), where it is passed through the scanner/parser. . It cannot be invoked from any other program (any child process).

Use

This command is available in a session, job, or in BREAK. It is not available from a program. Pressing Break has no effect on this command.

Examples

The following command sets the UDC directory for the user JOHN.WORKERS with the commands in the file named UDCA. The USER option cannot be specified with the ACCOUNT or SYSTEM options. Attempting to do so produces an error.

 SETCATALOG UDCA; USER=JOHN.WORKERS

The following two command sequences are equivalent:

 SETCATALOG UDCA, UDCB
 
 SETCATALOG UDCA
 SETCATALOG UDCB ;APPEND

In the first example, the command has an implied RESET, and thus overwrites the previous file set in the directory. In the second example, UDCA is entered into the directory, and then UDCB is appended to the directory without affecting UDCA. It also finds new logon commands if appropriate.

The following command deletes UDCA from the directory at the account level, provided it was cataloged at the account level. If other account-level UDCs reside in the directory along with UDCA, they remain undisturbed by this deletion. When appropriate, a new logon UDC is set up.

 SETCATALOG UDCA ;DELETE ;ACCOUNT

	NOTE: It is not a good practice to create UDC's which have the same name as other files, especially command files or any other files your users may confuse with UDC's. If you enter a fully qualified file name that has the same name as an existing UDC, the group and account part of the fully qualified name are passed to the UDC as a parameter. For example, if COMM is a UDC, entering COMM.GROUP.ACCT will cause .GROUP.ACCT to be passed to COMM as a parameter even if COMM.GROUP.ACCT is a separate file.