Example No. 1,178,666 of how to get into trouble with a fancy computer system ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hey, Z freaks, it seems that GET can't load files stored in a COMMAND.LBR file. I had assumed that GET and GO were essentially a simple separation of the load-the-file and execute-the-file halves of a normal command execution sequence. Apparently this isn't quite the case, in that GET doesn't seem to be able to search for the requested command file down through ALIAS.CMD and then into a COMMAND.LBR. GET turns out to be simple minded as Z system tools go, in that it wants the .COM file to be out "above" the ECP's. I concede this ain't much of a problem--all you lose by making sure all files used in aliases or ZEX routines that employ GET is a wee bit of disk space. It's more of an aesthetic irritant; I dislike having Z system features that entail potentially fatal consequences if the user doesn't heed some sort of exception warning, as in "this works fine unless you try..." If you are dumb enough to do what I did, and accidently ask your Z System to try to get, poke and go with a file that's not actually there, obviously the system will attempt to execute code that has been more or less whimsically altered, and all sorts of strange and horrible things may happen. I have this one small old program (Ward Christensen's CAT.COM) which I use in a variety of spin-off versions via get-poke-go routines to generate different kinds of listings. These entail poking the text that CAT uses to label the columns in its output. I wrote these routines about a year ago and ever since I've just used them automatically; details about how they worked sort of faded away... So, a couple of days ago I was doing some routine system maintenance, and happened to notice CAT.COM sitting by itself in the ROOT. Now if I'd had my head screwed on tight, I would have realized that there had to be a good reason why the program wasn't stored with about 125 other small routines that I keep in a COMMAND.LBR file, but NOOOOO, I just up and shoved CAT.COM into the library... Earlier tonight, I called upon one of these get-poke-go routines. It hung the system. "That's odd," I thought, not realizing that I'd unmaintained my system two days earlier. I fooled around trying to figure out what was wrong and realized I was using one of the get-poke-go aliases, so I tried another. BIIIIG mistake; this one made my aging hard disk emit VERY angry noises... Fortunately no permanent damage seems to have been done. So be forewarned. In case it matters, this happened on a Morrow MD-5 using Z3PLUS. Maybe this small quirk can be fixed in some future RCP? Best regards to all/Dick Ellis/21 10th Brunswick MD 21716/301 834 7976 Uploaded to Znodes 1, 2, 3 and 32 during the wee hours of the night of December 2-3 1989  .