🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec13.020257.1@tango.cchs.su.oz.au>, brennan@tango.cchs.su.oz.au (Luke Brennan) writes...
#In article <12DEC199200264446@spades.aces.com>, gavron@spades.aces.com (Ehud Gavron 602-570-2000 x. 2546) writes:
#> In article <Bz3KEC.Es2@wm.estec.esa.nl>, hevans@estcs1.dnet.estec.esa.nl writes...
#> # 
#> #Can anyone out there tell me if it is possible to write my own lexical
#> #functions, and how?
#> 
#[...]
#> 	The answer to your implied question is NO, you cannot normally
#> 	write your own lexical functions into DCL.
#[...]
#> 
#> 	Ehud
# 
#	Why precisely? No hooks? Yes, but undocumented? Totally impossible?
#	'you cannot normally'.. okay - so what about NOT normally? :-)

The other lines of the post which listed how you could, and why you NORMALLY 
can't were quite clear.

#	Isn't this the kind of thing an internals guru would *eat* ? !!
#        Seems like an incredible oversight for VMS - I recall even PRIMOS
#	had that kind of thing standard in the RTL..

There is a big difference between running an image, and adding your own 
iser functions to a privileged interpreter.  That is one Pandora's box
that Digital has left unopened.  It's too bad, of course.  It would be
nice if it were there, but there's nothing an external image can do that 
a lexical could do much better.

#	Just asking.. Luke.

I'm sure you realize that that question (as well as why there is no DCL
compiler) has been asked many times.  The question is not stupid, nor
is the answer: it opens up too many cans of worms to allow user modification
(including putting in the appropriate hooks) to the command interpreter 
which everything in VMS depends on, from bootstrap sysinit phase and on.

Ehud

--
Ehud Gavron        (EG76)     
gavron@vesta.sunquest.com