8 File Storage

The Default Mass Storage Device

At startup of Eloquence or when SCRATCH A is executed, a default mass storage device is automatically specified. This is the device to which all file storage operations are directed if no other device is specified. To establish the default mass storage device, Eloquence looks consecutively in the user and group configuration files for an MSI statement. If an MSI statement is not found, the first VOLUME spec in the global configuration file is used as the default mass storage device.

The default device is changed by executing the MASS STORAGE IS statement:

MASS STORAGE IS volume spec

or

MSI volume spec

The volume spec is a string expression containing either a unit spec or a volume label. Note that a comma before the volume label is optional.

The following example shows how to change the default device by specifying the MSI command and a unit spec: 

MASS STORAGE IS ":C2,7"
NOTE: The "unit spec" is not supported on Windows NT and not recommended on HP-UX.

As another example, if the label TEST is assigned to the directory /usr/test, any of the following statements can be used to set this directory as the default mass storage device: 

10   MASS STORAGE IS "TEST"
 .
200  MSI "TEST"
 .
 .
500  Label$="TEST"
510  MSI Label$
To reset the mass storage device to its value at startup of Eloquence, enter the following command: 

MSI ""
You can omit the select code, controller address, and unit code parameters from successive file specs by stating them in a MASS STORAGE IS at the beginning of a program.

Eloquence Language Manual - 19 DEC 2002