Will any VMSguru or anyone help me out with this? I'm trying to delete files in a directory based on a directory file listing of another different directory. In Unix, i would perform the following: foreach file (`ls <dir1>) del <dir2>/$file end Is there an equivalent command of such in VMS? Or are there other ways to perform this operation? Please kindly advice. Thanks a million!

There are several implementations of such loops floating around. Have a look in http://dcl.openvms.org for each.com . I You don't find, use the one on my server at http://wwwvms.mppmu.mpg.de/util_root/com/each.com I didn't write it, but use it frequently. The syntax of your above loop would be: each <dir1>*.* "delete <dir2>'nt';" assuming the definition of each :== @dev:[dir]each or each.com being in DCL$PATH:

For the particular case of "delete a file if one with the same name exists in a different directory", there is my delete_if_exists.com, and delete_if_identical.com in http://wwwvms.mppmu.mpg.de/util_root/com/

Hi Joseph, Thanks for your suggestion. But can i have an easier and non-complicated way to perform the loop? How can i use the For loop to perform my work in VMS? Can i work similarly to the way i used in UNIX? foreach file (`ls <dir1>`) del <dir2>/$file end On the other hand, how do i truncate the version number of a file when i output the directory listing of a directory? For example: abc.log;1 | V abc.log

Hi Joseph, For better understanding, i'm trying to perform the following which i did successfully in UNIX. I'm trying to capture the list of files in a particular directory and delete them in a connected machine. For example in UNIX, i performed the following: foreach file (`ls <dir1>`) mem del $file end However, UNIX do not consist of any version number at the end of a filename. Hence, i would need to truncate the version number off the filename when i dir the files.

Since DCL has no loop construct like foreach, the mentioned each.com comes nearest. But of course You can write a much simples procedure to perform the particular task: To delete a file You HAVE to specify it's version number (or use a wildcard ";*" version to delete all. The DCL loop would be something like that: $ pattern = "[dir1]*.*" $loop: $ file=f$search(pattern) $ if file.eqs."" then goto done $ delete 'file' $ goto loop $done: $ exit If You want to extract only parts of the file specification, use the f$parse lexical function like this: $ fnode = f$parse(file,,,"NODE") $ fdev = f$parse(file,,,"DEVICE") $ fdir = f$parse(file,,,"DIRECTORY") $ name = f$parse(file,,,"NAME") $ ftyp = f$parse(file,,,""TYPE") $ ver = f$parse(file,,,:VERSION") $ nt = name+ftyp !file name.typ Then e.g. delete all files with that name.typ: $ delete 'nt';* I don't understand what Your "mem del $file" in fact should do. If it means "delete file having this name" then the above delete does it. And my delete_if_exists.com does it also.

And BTW with a Unix-compatible "ls" command (e.g. from the HP sites GNV tool), and perl installed, the following one liner will do what You want: perl -e "foreach my $file (`ls /disk/dir`) {chop($file);system(""delete $file;"");}"