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Adding Your Own Tools

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You can add you own diagnostic tools to by following some simple rules. You can also provide help information on the user-provided tools.

Add User Tools

Information needed to run a user-provided tool must reside in USERINFO.NET.SYS. You can create this file with any text editor. It must have a record length of 80 characters or less.

You can describe up to 20 user tools in the file. For each tool, two types of entries are needed: the one word command which will initiate the tool from the root level of NETTOOL, and a list of the MPE commands required to start the tool (as if it were being used standalone).

The first character in the tool command must be alphabetic. The command can be up to 20 characters in length. It must not duplicate any NETTOOL global command, core tool name, or associated tool name.

The first character in a line containing an MPE command must be an exclamation mark. Characters may be either lower or upper case, but NETTOOL does not distinguish between the two. NETTOOL does not interpret the string after the exclamation mark in any way. Up to 79 characters may follow the exclamation mark.

The list of MPE commands must follow the command name. For example, a valid set of entries in the file might be: 

  NEATPROG2
  !file input=fromhere.pub.sys
  !file output=tohere.net.sys
  !run myprog.maui.hawaii;info="map, 26, verbose";lib=p
  TESTTOOL
  !run testtool.net.sys
To run MYPROG.MAUI.HAWAII from the NETTOOL root, a user would enter the command NEATPROG2. To run TESTTOOL.NET.SYS, the user would enter TESTTOOL.

Any first character in a line other than !, a..z, or A..Z is an error and will cause all subsequent entries to be ignored. Also, if you specify more than five MPE commands for a tool, all subsequent entries in the file will be ignored. Blank lines have no effect. Lines with only a ! will be sent to MPE as a carriage return.

A sample USERINFO file is included as part of the NETTOOL package.

Add User Provided Help

To provide help on user tools, you must create the file USERHELP.NET.SYS. This file should contain help text for all user tools defined in USERINFO.net.sys.

Use the following format for help text:

  1. There must be an \ENTRY=ROOT block which gives a one word list of the user-defined NETTOOL commands. These commands are the same as those defined in USERINFO.NET.SYS. This is the text that will be displayed when the user types help with no parameters at root level.

  2. Within the \ENTRY=ROOT block, there must be an \item=commands block that contains a one line description of the user-defined commands that run the tools. This is the text that will be displayed when the user types help commands at the root level.

  3. Within the \ENTRY=ROOT block, there must be an \ITEM=command_name block for each of the tools. These blocks contain the text that is displayed when the user types help command_name at the root level where command_name is a user command defined in USERINFO.NET.SYS.

  4. There must be an \ALL directive at the end of the help text.

A sample USERhelp file is included as part of the NETTOOL package.

For a user-defined tool defined as follows: 

  mytool
  !file input=parms.net.sys
  !run myprog.net.sys
The user help might look like this: 

  \ENTRY=ROOT   MYTOOL
    MYTOOL
  \ITEM=COMMANDS
    MYTOOLExamines the path cache and purges all entries
  \ITEM=MYTOOL
    If you suspect that the path cache is out of unused
    entries or that duplicate IP addresses have been
    defined, use MYTOOL to clear the entire cache.
  \ALL

  1. You must format the help file into a help catalog using MAKECAT.PUB.SYS, as follows: 

    
  file input=sourcefilename
  run makecat.pub.sys,help
  rename helpcat,userhelp.net.sys
  reset input
    Here, sourcefilename is your unformatted help file and helpcat is the file name reserved by MAKECAT for its output.



Using the NETTOOL Tools

Chapter 7 Commands