80-Bus News

  

Spring 1985 · Volume 4 · Issue 1

Page 20 of 31

Conditional Submit Files

By Steve Willmott

The CP/M SUBMIT facility is much like an elementary Job Control Language. The public domain EXSUB facility is very similar. They both support a job submission with parameters which enable repetitive jobs like the development cycle edit, compile, link and run to be conveniently defined and then used generally. When submitted only the command file and the parameters which define this job (e.g. the source file to be compiled) need be supplied. A typical example file called MAC.SUB is:

ED $1.MAC
M80 =$1
L80 /P:100,$1,LIBRARY/S,$1/N/E
$1

and invoked in response to the CCP prompt to develop the program DEMO.MAC by

SUBMIT MAC DEMO

The SUBMIT utility processes the MAC.SUB file substituting the parameter string ‘DEMO’ in place of the place holder $1. it creates a new file called $$$.SUB with one command line in each 128 byte record in the reverse order. Whenever the CCP runs it looks for this file on disk and reads the last record into the command area below address 0100 hex, removes the last record from the file $$$.SUB and obeys the installed command as if it had been entered manually. If the CCP finds the file $$$.SUB empty then it deletes the file from disk thereby ending the job.

However, there is at least one annoying deficiency in CP/M in this area and that is that the only way to stop a submit file is to hit the keyboard while the CCP is reading the next command from disk. CP/M provides no means of any of the transient programs run in the TPA to return a success or failure indication such that the CCP could pick up this status and automatically abort the submit file. If the LIBRARY.REL file used above is large it can take minutes to perform the linkage to produce the DEMO.COM object file. When the compile fails and the linker is entered one is tempted to hit the keyboard very hard, particularly if it is a small syntax error and a long wait for the linker to complete. It seems unsatisfying to just hit the restart button.

Most decently designed programs output a report on how well it has run. Perhaps unsurprisingly the report is left on the screen for the user to see. Each program normally generates this report in a fairly fixed format. A compiler will state how many errors or warnings have or have not been found. With a Gemini IVC or SVC video board (or indeed a Nascom with memory mapped display or I assume an AVC or whatever) one is able to read back from the display and analyse this report. The result of the analysis could cause the abortion of the submit file. This is what the CHECK utility does when it is run as part of a submit file. The program has been written for the IVC or SVC, but since the M80 source for CHECK is listed here it should not be too difficult to modify for other systems. A typical use would be in the submit file MAC.SUB:

ED $1.MAC
M80 =$
CHECK 'NO FATAL ERROR(S)'/CU
L80 /P:100,$1,LIBRARY/S,$1/N/E
$1

The command syntax for CHECK is:

CHECK 'string'/switches

The supplied string is compared to a previous line on the display according to the optional switches. If the check is successful CHECK merely exits back to the CCP and the submit file continues. If the check fails then CHECK prompts for abortion of the submission. If the answer is Yes the executing submit file ‘$$$.SUB’ is deleted from the disk, thereby aborting the submit file. If the answer is No CHECK returns to the CCP and everything carries on as normal.

One can experiment with CHECK by using the screen edit facilities provided by the BIOS. However, the following provides some of the rationale behind the program design. The supplied string must be in single quotes, because since the /switches are optional one cannot supply a string of spaces or a null string — the CCP will not see them. The ‘/’ separator before the switches merely conforms to common syntax. The switches all have defaults which allow them to be optional. They can be supplied in any order. Some of the switches have been built in to increase the pattern matching ability of the utility. Considering each switch in turn:

Bindicates that previous blank lines are significant and modifies the effect of the L switch. The default is to ignore blank lines.
Cindicates that the supplied string must match the complete displayed line. The example above means that warnings from the M80 assembler will be trapped as the warning report follows the fatal error report on the same line. The default is to allow a match anywhere in, the line.
Findicates that the string must match the finish of the displayed line. The default is a match
Page 20 of 31