Welcome to Version 1.08b of pCLIST.


CONTENTS OF DISK


PCLIST.DOC ...... The main documention for pCLIST. This is a
straight ASCII file which is formatted to print
nicely on standard 8.5 x 11 paper (52 pages).

PCLIST.EXE ...... The pCLIST Program.

README.1ST ...... This file.

REGISTER.DOC .... A copy of the registration form.

TSODIFF.DOC ..... Brief summary of the major differences between TSO
CLIST and pCLIST.

ADDLINE#.CLT .... Example of DOS filter. Prefixes each line with an
8 digit sequence number.

BIO.CLT ......... Example of a CLIST which invokes an external CLIST.
This CLIST computes "biorhythms"

BIO2.CLT ........ Example of a CLIST which invokes an internal
subprocedure. Same calculation as BIO.CLT.

CALC.CLT ........ An integer calculator. Demonstrates &EVAL function,
ERROR capture, &DATATYPE function.

COLOR.CLT ....... Example of color usage with ANSI.SYS escape sequence.

COMPAT.CLT ...... Another example of an external CLIST call. Computes
biorhythmic compatibility of two people.

DEMO.CLT ........ A simplistic "demo" CLIST.

DELLINE#.CLT .... Example of DOS filter. Removes 8 digit sequence
number from start of each line.

EASTER.CLT ...... Computes date Easter will occur for a given year.

EASTERS.CLT ..... Computes date Easter will occur for a series of years.

JULDATE.CLT ..... The External CLIST called by BIO.CLT and COMPAT.CLT

LISTS.CLT ....... Example of use of LISTDSI. Computes allocated vs
used space on disk. Can specify sectors/cluster.

LISTSP.CLT ...... Similar to LISTS but displays stats for each data set
in addition to summary.

MENU.CLT ........ Example of a simple menu driven application.

READWRT.CLT ..... Example of CLIST that reads a file and copies it to
another file. If the file does not exist, it is
created. End of file mark is not written.

SHARC.CLT ....... Example of how CLIST can tie several DOS commands
together to generate a new capability. This is
a simplistic application simulating the SHARC
shareware program. Uses "PKXARC" or "ARC" and "LIST"

TYPER.CLT ....... Example of a CLIST that uses file I/O to read a
text file and display it one page at a time.
Pauses at end of each page.

WHATSIZE.CLT .... For you mainframe users, a CLIST that calculates
track capacities for various IBM storage devices.



FUTURE DIRECTIONS:

It is intended that a future release will support the case statements
SELECT, WHEN, and OTHERWISE.

The ATTN statement for intercepting user attention interrupts is not
fully functional at this time. It is recognized, and will be correctly
interpreted. However, it cannot be activated as no hot key assignment
has been assigned. A future release will provide hot key activation of
the ATTN routine.

A difference exists between TSO CLIST and pCLIST in how variables are
accessed in ERROR routines. In TSO, an ERROR routine in the main CLIST
which is invoked by a nested CLIST or subroutine has access only to the
main CLIST variables. In pCLIST, the ERROR routine has access to the
variables in the routine where the error occured. It is intended that
pCLIST be compatible with TSO. This will require a major design change
in pCLIST and will be implemented in a future release. To be compatible
with future releases, ERROR routines that are intended to be used in
this manner should only reference GLOBAL or NGLOBAL defined variables.
Also, each subroutine or nested CLIST should have its own ERROR routine.


HISTORY:

Versions prior to 1.05 were "alpha" development versions.

Version Date Description
******* ******** ***************************************************

1.05 08/06/88 The first "Beta" release.

1.06 09/12/88 Corrected bugs in IF-THEN-ELSE phase 1 processing
of nested IF statements.

1.07 11/29/88 Improved command line parsing. Modified FREE
statement to accept multiple file names. Modified
ALLOC statement to check DISP. Fixed bug in parse
involving missing operand. Fixed errors in
sample CLISTs.

1.08 04/30/89 First "General" release.
Improved ERROR processing. Added DO UNTIL and
iterated DO. General clean-up. Returns DOS
ERRORLEVEL. Added extended search for CLT files --
if file is not in current directory, DOS path is
searched.

1.08a 05/11/89 Bug fix. Corrected error in READ of null value and
error in logical comparision of lowercase constant
in default CAPS on mode.

1.08b 11/03/89 Bug fix. Corrected various errors including:
&NRSTR long strings were not handled correctly,
file I/O file name was truncated to 7 characters,
LASTCC was not reset after SET &lastcc=value,
and an intermittent scan error.
To help users convert BAT files to CLISTs, the
reserved character xFF is converted to a space when
the CLIST is initially loaded. The xFF is commonly
used after ECHO in BAT files to display a blank line.
The xFF remains a reserved character in CLISTs and
cannot be contained in CLIST variables or file I/O
-- unpredictable errors will occur if it is used.