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AN INTRODUCTION TO MIC
MIC stands for Macro Interpreted Commands and is a system that allows
users to create their own system commands.
This User Guide is intended as an introduction to MIC; it is not
intended as a reference document. A MIC reference manual is available
for a small fee from the Job Receptionist and a copy is held in the
user area book racks. A MIC Summary Card is also available (free)
from Job Reception.
keywords: MIC, macro commands, command files
J.D. Service
A.J. Bullen
CONTENTS page
1. What MIC does 2
2. Creating MIC files 3
3. Calling MIC files 3
4. Example 4
5. Parameters in MIC macro commands 4
6. Labels and branching facilities 6
7. Error detection and processing 7
8. Silencing MIC 10
9. Manipulating parameters in a command file 11
10. Character subscripting facilities 11
11. Other useful facilities 12
12. Miscellaneous notes on MIC 13
13. Commands not covered in this guide 13
This is a reprint with minor changes of the version dated 1 September 1978.
Replacement is not necessary.
User Guide No. U6 Page 2
14 November 1979
1. What MIC does.
MIC is particularly useful if you are a regular user of the system and
find that you are frequently typing the same sequence of commands,
which is boring. What you require is a single command which performs
the functions of all of your commands. In computer jargon this is
called a MACRO command, and on the DEC-10 they are known as
macro commands
or MIC commands
or MIC command files.
For example if you frequently use the sequence of commands:
.DELETE *.TMP,*.Q??
.EX LINUS.FOR,SYS:NAGF/LIB
you could create a macro command called SNOOPY, say, to perform their
combined function.
To do this, SOS or TECO (see User Guide U2 for SOS or U1 for TECO)
could be used to create a file, called a MIC file, containing the two
commands (including the full stops at the start of the lines). If
this file was called SNOOPY.MIC - note the .MIC extension - you could
cause the sequence of commands to be obeyed simply by typing the
single command
.DO SNOOPY
The commands in the MIC file will then be typed on your terminal and
obeyed as if you had typed them; all output from the commands will
also be displayed on the terminal. The file SNOOPY.MIC can then
remain available for use at any time.
MIC files may contain any number of commands, of any type, including
macro commands. In order to make MIC commands more useful, MIC files
may use many other facilities, including command arguments (or
parameters) and switches in the command call, conditional and
branching statements to enable jumps to labelled lines, and assignment
statements which allow parameters and variables to be assigned or
altered during the processing of the MIC command.
User Guide No. U6 Page 3
14 November 1979
2. Creating MIC files.
MIC files may be created using a normal text file editor, e.g. SOS or
TECO. The file may be with or without line numbers. It will normally
have the extension .MIC.
Each line should have as its first non-space or tab character one of
the characters =, ., *, ! or ; which are interpreted as follows:
. monitor command follows
* data to be input to a program follows
= ignore carriage return at the end of this line
! comment line follows
; comment line follows (see section 8 for difference from !)
In order to get control characters such as control-C, control-Z, or
altmode into a MIC file, the control key and the character are
replaced by the up-arrow key followed by the character, e.g.
^C for control-C
^Z for control-Z
^[ for altmode (escape)
The ' (single quotation mark) followed by a letter indicates a
parameter in MIC (see section 5) so if quotation marks are needed in a
MIC file it is advisable to use double quotes ("<text>").
If any of the special characters described in this section is required
as itself, however, the character should be repeated, e.g.
^^C gives ^C not control-C.
VID:''MYTAPE' gives VID:'MYTAPE' not parameter M
Note - the characters =, ., *, !, and ; need only be repeated if they
are required in the first character position of a line.
3. Calling MIC files.
MIC files are called into action with a command of the form
.DO <dev>:<micfilename>[<ppn>]
where the device, ppn and file extension are optional. If the file is
in your own disk area or in the MIC library area (MIC:), the following
is sufficient:
.DO <micfilename>
User Guide No. U6 Page 4
14 November 1979
because the defaults are
DSK:, or if not found, MIC:, for device
your own project-programmer number for [<ppn>]
.MIC for the filename extension.
4. Example.
The following is an example of a computer session to create and use a
MIC file to tidy up one user's disk area:
.MAKE TIDY.MIC Call TECO to make a file called TIDY.MIC.
*I.DELETE *.BAK Insert monitor commands as shown ...
.PROTECT *.DAT <177>
.PRINT *.LST
$ $
*EX $ $ Exit from TECO.
.DO TIDY Call TIDY.MIC into action
.DELETE *.BAK From this point on, the system
FILES DELETED obeys your MIC file automatically.
FIND.BAK The remainder of the example has
10 BLOCKS FREED been output in its entirety by
.PROTECT *.DAT <177> the system with no input from you.
FILES RENAMED
TEST.DAT
TEST1.DAT
.PRINT *.LST
[LPT:<filename>=/Seq:2601/Limit:203,4 Files]
.
5. Parameters in MIC macro commands.
More generalised commands may be constructed using parameters in the
MIC file to stand for filenames or other quantities which would be
entered in the MIC command command call. The full specification of a
MIC call is
.DO <dev>:<micfilespec>[<ppn>] <parameterA>, <parameterB>, ...
A parameter may be any string of characters separated by commas
(special rules exist for brackets - see the MIC Reference Manual). Up
to 26 parameters are allowed and within the MIC file itself they are
introduced by 'A, 'B, 'C ....'Z, i.e. a letter of the alphabet
preceded by a single quote. During execution of a macro a single
quote followed by the <n>th letter of the alphabet will always be
replaced by the <n>th parameter in the MIC call.
User Guide No. U6 Page 5
14 November 1979
As an example, the TIDY macro described earlier changed the protection
code of all .DAT files to 177. The actual protection code used could
have been selected at run time by giving the required code as a
parameter in the MIC call. To do this the MIC file should contain
.DELETE *.BAK
.PROTECT *.DAT <'A>
.PRINT *.LST
To obtain a protection of 177 the MIC call is
.DO TIDY 177
To obtain a protection of 157 the MIC call is
.DO TIDY 157
In the first case 177 is substituted for 'A at run time; in the
second case 157 is substituted.
Parameters are very useful when setting up MIC files which will act on
file names at run time; the parameters will then be file names. As
an example consider the problem of retrieving a file from a magnetic
tape. First the magnetic tape must be mounted, then the file copied
to disk. Finally you may want to see that the file has really been
retrieved by checking your directory listing. It is possible to write
a retrieval macro called, say, RESTOR, which would perform the task
when you give a command of the form
.DO RESTOR <filename>.<ext>
The commands in RESTOR.MIC would be
.MOUNT MTA:BACKUP/REELID:Y00530/VID:"FRED BLOGGS"
.R BACKUP
*RESTORE 'A
*EXIT
.DIR/FAST
When the MIC command call
.DO RESTOR PROG1.F4
is typed, PROG1.F4 would be substituted for 'A in the processing of
the macro.
The example can be further generalised by using parameters for the
tape identity. In this case RESTOR.MIC would contain
.MOUNT MTA:BACKUP/REELID:'B/VID:"'C"
.R BACKUP
*RESTORE 'A
*EXIT
.DIRECT/FAST
User Guide No. U6 Page 6
14 November 1979
and a MIC call would be of the form
.DO RESTOR PROG2.ALG,Y00537,BILL SMITH
6. Labels and branching facilities.
The normal sequential processing of a MIC file may be interrupted by
using jump commands to labelled lines. Conditional statements,
described later, allow a conditional jump or a conditional command to
be included.
NOTE
These jump commands and conditional statements, as well as the
error processing features described in section 7, have the
same names and functions as those used by the batch system.
6.1 Labels.
A line in MIC may be labelled by placing the label at the beginning of
the line. A label consists of one to six alphanumeric characters and
is terminated by a double colon (::). Example -
FRED::.DELETE *.BAK
6.2 Jump statements.
Two jump statements are available:
.GOTO
and .BACKTO
The GOTO statement is used for a forward branch and the BACKTO for a
backward branch. (`Backward' here means going to the beginning of the
file and starting the search from there.)
A not to be recommended example which will perform DIRECT in an
infinite loop is
FRED::.DIRECT
.BACKTO FRED
User Guide No. U6 Page 7
14 November 1979
Another not very exciting example is
.GOTO MYLAB
.DEL *.TMP
MYLAB::.RENAME OLD.DAT=FOR05.DAT
because the .DEL *.TMP will never be obeyed.
There is one label, %FIN, which acts as a kind of `super label' and is
branched to by any GOTO or BACKTO if the %FIN occurs before the label
for which they are searching. In the following example,
.GOTO FRED
.
.
.
%FIN::.COMP MYPROG.FOR
FRED::.DIR
the statement GOTO FRED will cause a branch to %FIN rather than FRED
because %FIN occurs before FRED.
7. Error detection and processing.
When a monitor or system program error occurs an error message is
normally output, and this is what most sensible user programs do.
Conventionally error messages are preceded by ? for fatal errors, and
% for warnings, and this `error character' always occurs as the first
character of an output line. MIC, like the batch system, allows you
to monitor this first character in the output line and take special
action if your defined error character occurs in this position.
By default this facility is off, unless you are running MIC in batch.
To use it, you include a command of the form
.ERROR <character>
to inform MIC which character in the first character position of the
output line is to be regarded as preceding an error message. In
batch, the default character is question mark (?). This single
command allows you to introduce very simple error processing into your
MIC macro. Whenever the error character specified by the command is
detected, processing of the MIC file will cease and the message
[ABORT ON ERROR]
will be displayed.
User Guide No. U6 Page 8
14 November 1979
For example if we modify the TIDY macro thus:
.ERROR ?
.DELETE *.TMP
.PROTECT *.DAT <'A>
.PRINT *.LST
then if we give an invalid argument to the macro the result will be:
.DO TIDY 875
.ERROR ?
.DELETE *.TMP
FILES DELETED
XYZ.TMP
.PROTECT *.DAT <875>
FILES RENAMED
?CMLIPC Illegal protection code: 875
[ABORT ON ERROR]
.
Note that the PRINT command has not been obeyed.
While this is useful it is obviously more useful if the user can
specify what action is to be taken if an error is detected. MIC
provides three ways in which this can be done (only two of which are
described in this document) and all three may be included in the same
macro.
7.1 Error labels.
The first method is to include error recovery labels at suitable
points within the MIC macro. There are three special labels which may
be classed as error recovery labels; "%ERR", "%CERR", and "%FIN".
On detecting an error character MIC does not actually stop processing
the MIC file immediately as was said in the last section, rather it
searches the remaining part of the MIC file for the occurrence of one
of the three error labels. Which label is searched for depends on the
following simple rule:
If the error occurred in a program which came from SYS: (i.e. a
systems program) or a monitor command, the label "%CERR" is searched
for, otherwise the label "%ERR" is searched for. However "%FIN" has
the same super-label effect described in section 6.2 and if, during
the search for "%ERR" or "%CERR" a "%FIN" label is encountered, this
will be regarded as satisfying the search.
Once MIC has found one of these error labels it `forgets' about the
error and continues processing the command file from a position
immediately after the error label.
User Guide No. U6 Page 9
14 November 1979
For example if our TIDY macro is modified thus:
.ERROR ?
.DELETE *.TMP
.PROTECT *.DAT <'A>
%FIN::.PRINT *.LST
the print command will always be obeyed even if an error occurs in
either of the preceeding two commands.
An alternative form is:
.ERROR ?
.DELETE *.TMP
.PROTECT *.DAT <'A>
%CERR::.PRINT *.LST
because DELETE and PROTECT are system commands, but
.ERROR ?
.DELETE *.TMP
.PROTECT *.DAT <'A>
%ERR::.PRINT *.LST
is not correct.
These labels may occur as often as required in a MIC macro as the file
is always searched forward for error characters.
For example the following would be a rather silly way of ignoring all
errors in TIDY:
.ERROR ?
%FIN::.DELETE *.TMP
%FIN::.PROTECT *.DAT <'A>
%FIN::.PRINT *.LST
or
.ERROR ?
%FIN::.DELETE *.TMP
%CERR::.PROTECT *.DAT <'A>
%CERR::.PRINT *.LST
or any other combination of %CERR and %FIN.
7.2 Error conditionals.
The second method of processing errors allows a much finer control
over error recovery, and to explain how it works we must once again
change our explanation of MIC's action on detecting an error.
User Guide No. U6 Page 10
14 November 1979
When an error is detected the command file is first searched for the
next monitor level line, that is the next line starting with a "."
(see section 2) and if the command on that line is
.IF (ERROR) <argument>
or
.IF (NOERROR) <argument>
processing of the command file will recommence with that same "IF"
command.
If a %FIN or other appropriate error label is found during the search
for the next monitor level command the error will be treated as in the
previous section. Similarly if the first command line is not one of
the two IF commands the error will be treated as in the previous
section.
Thus if we modify TIDY yet again -
.ERROR ?
.DELETE *.TMP
.PROTECT *.DAT <'A>
.IF (ERROR) .DIR/F
.PRINT *.LST
then if an error occurs in the PROTECT command the command IF (ERROR)
will cause the DIR/F command to be obeyed followed by the PRINT
command, but if the error occurs in the DELETE command none of the
following commands will be obeyed.
8. Silencing MIC.
Generally the commands in a MIC control file will be typed on the
terminal as they are obeyed. However this type-out can be suppressed
by the MIC command .SILENCE or reinstated by the command .REVIVE. For
example
.SILENCE
.R SETSRC
*NEW
^C
in a MIC file will suppress the output from the running of SETSRC.
The whole MIC control file may be silenced by giving it a protection
code of <2??>, i.e. any protection with the first digit a `2'. This
is over-ridden in the file by any .REVIVE command. In the above
example this would allow the .SILENCE command to be omitted.
Note that comments preceeded by "!" will be displayed despite the
SILENCE condition; those preceeded by ";" will not.
User Guide No. U6 Page 11
14 November 1979
9. Manipulating parameters in a command file.
Users' parameters to MIC command files are held within MIC as ASCII
strings. The LET statement allows a user to change parameters and
define new parameters during the processing of a MIC file by assigning
a string or integer expression to the parameter thus:
.LET <parameter name>=<expression>
where <parameter name> is a parameter to the MIC file
either passed in the calling statement or newly
constructed. It must be one of the characters
A through Z.
<expression> is either a string expression or a
simple integer expression.
A string expression may be a simple string such as "FRED.FOR" or have
a more complex form allowing a string to be constructed from strings
in other parameters; e.g. $A+"."+$B is an expression which
concatenates three strings. Note the use of the $ before the
parameter to indicate that the contents of the parameter are to be
treated as a string, i.e. $A is equivalent to "'A".
An integer expression may also have parameters and involve the
arithmetic operators + - * / and ^ where the normal precedence rules
apply. An example of an integer expression is 3*C+A-B.
Examples:
a) .LET Z="THIS FORMS A NEW PARAMETER"
Whenever parameter Z is referred to in future it
will contain the text "THIS FORMS A NEW PARAMETER"
b) A calling statement of DO LINUS DSKD and statements in
the MIC file LINUS of
.LET F="[1045,33]"
.LET H=$A+"FRED.FOR"+$F
.EX 'H
would execute the program DSKD:FRED.FOR[1045,33]
c) .LET D=A+1 will add the integer 1 to the integer
held in A. If A does not contain an integer an
error message will result.
10. Character subscripting facilities.
Any single character or group of characters in a string may be
referred to individually by using the subscripting facilities. These
allow you to give a MIC command which will loop around a set of
monitor commands substituting a different parameter from a sequence of
parameters each time the loop is obeyed.
User Guide No. U6 Page 12
14 November 1979
A subscripted string expression used in a LET statement has the form
$<parameter>.[<subscript1>,<subscript2>]
The first subscript specifies the first character to be extracted from
the string contained in the parameter, the second subscript specifies
the total number of characters to be extracted.
Thus if parameter A contains the string BCDEF the subscripted string
expression $A.[2,3] refers to the string CDE.
The second subscript may be omitted and in this case the length of the
extracted string is assumed to be one character. The expression
$A.[4] refers to the 4th character in the string, i.e. character E in
the above example.
Negative subscripts may be used to count backwards from the end of the
string. If A contains BCDEFG then $A.[-2] refers to character F.
11. Other useful facilities.
11.1 The PLEASE command.
A PLEASE command exists to enable a message to be transmitted to the
user of a MIC file. This may be used to indicate progress during the
operation of a silenced MIC file or to transmit a message from the
creator of a MIC file to a user of the file.
The form of the command is
.PLEASE <message> $
The message is displayed on the terminal when the PLEASE command is
processed in the MIC file. If the terminating altmode is omitted then
MIC will suspend processing until you give instructions to proceed by
typing control-P - see section 11.2.
11.2 Suspending MIC processing.
The processing of a MIC file may be suspended by typing control-B.
MIC will then output the message [BREAK] and await further action from
you.
At this stage any monitor command or any MIC command may be typed in.
(If a MIC command is typed in, the initial `.' should be omitted.) You
may for example wish to type in LET commands to alter the values of
the parameters in the suspended MIC file or GOTO and BACKTO statements
to cause jumps to other parts of the MIC file.
User Guide No. U6 Page 13
14 November 1979
To continue processing of the MIC file type control-P. Any changes in
parameters or instructions to jump to labelled commands will be
recognised in the processing of the remainder of the MIC file.
Note that a control-C typed in during the break period will cancel the
suspended MIC process.
11.3 Nested MIC processes
MIC command files may themselves contain MIC commands. Each file may
have its own parameters but inner processes may access the parameters
in an outer process. For further details see the MIC reference
manual.
12. Miscellaneous notes on MIC.
a) If a job is currently executing a MIC file, type-ahead is not allowed.
The only exception is for control characters; all other type-ahead
will be discarded.
b) An existing batch control file can be run as a MIC macro as long as it
does not include single quote characters which MIC will interpret as
parameter indicators.
13. Commands not covered in this guide.
The following MIC facilities are not covered in this user guide but
are fully documented in the MIC reference manual.
Multiple LET statements
IF (command) extensions
OPERATOR/NOOPERATOR commands
MIC RESPONSE command
MIC ABORT command
MIC CANCEL command
MIC BREAK command
MIC PROCEED command
MIC EXIT command
MIC RETURN command
MIC INPUT command
Obtaining system parameters such as TTY number, PPN, Job numbers
ON command
WHENEVER command
MIC SET command
MIC COJOB
Action parameters
Multiple commands on a line
User Guide No. U6 Page 14
14 November 1979
You are advised to see the MIC reference manual for full documentation
on MIC. A copy is held in the computer building user area book rack,
and copies may also be obtained from Job Reception for a small fee.