VMS Help  —  CMS  DIFFERENCES  file  Qualifiers

1    /APPEND

    Controls whether CMS appends the command output to an existing
    file, or creates a new file. If you specify /APPEND and the output
    file does not exist, CMS creates a new file. If you do not provide
    an output file specification (see the description for /OUTPUT),
    CMS searches your current default directory for a file with the
    file name specified in the file1 parameter and the file type .DIF.

2    /FORMAT=(data-format, data-partition, [no]generation-differences)

    Controls whether the output file is formatted, specifies the
    type of formatting, and controls whether a list of generation
    differences is included in the DIFFERENCES output. You can specify
    the parameters in any order.

    data-format

    Specifies the type of format. Possible values for data formats
    include:   ASCII (Default), DECIMAL, HEXADECIMAL, and OCTAL.

    data-partition

    Specifies the type of data partition. Possible values for data
    partitions include:  BYTE, LONGWORD, RECORDS (Default), and WORD.

    generation-differences

    Specifies whether or not a list of generation differences is to
    be included in the DIFFERENCES output. This option is applicable
    only if two element generations are compared by the DIFFERENCES
    command. In any other case, this option is ignored.  Possible
    values for generation-differences include: GENERATION_DIFFERENCES
    and NOGENERATION_DIFFERENCES (Default).

3    /FULL

    Directs CMS to include a complete listing in the output file,
    including identical text and differences between file1 and file2.

4    /GENERATION[=generation-expression]

    Directs CMS to search for an element generation in the current
    CMS library. The /GENERATION qualifier must immediately follow
    the element name to which it applies. If you specify /GENERATION
    but do not provide a generation expression, CMS uses the latest
    generation on the main line of descent.

5    /IGNORE=(keyword[,...])

    Specifies one or more of the following keywords. Each keyword
    indicates a type of special character to be ignored during the
    comparison.

    Keyword          Ignored Characters

    CASE             Directs CMS to ignore any differences between the
                     case of alphabetic characters (A-Z, a-z).

    FORM_FEEDS       Directs CMS to remove formfeed characters as it
                     compares records from the two files.

    HISTORY          Directs CMS to ignore element generation history
                     as it compares a file with a generation. At least
                     one of the files must be an element generation
                     with the history attribute enabled.

    LEADING_BLANKS   Directs CMS to remove leading blanks and tabs as
                     it compares records from the two files.

    NOTES            Directs CMS to ignore notes as it compares a file
                     with a generation. At least one of the files must
                     be an element generation with the notes attribute
                     enabled.

    SPACING          Directs CMS to compress multiple blanks and tabs
                     into a single space as it compares records from
                     the two files.

    TRAILING_BLANKS  Directs CMS to remove trailing blanks and tabs as
                     it compares records from the two files.

    If the HISTORY or NOTES keyword is specified, the history or notes
    text is not used for the comparison, and is also removed from
    the output generated by DIFFERENCES. For all other options, the
    output generated by DIFFERENCES contains the original records used
    for the comparison, instead of the modified form of the records
    designated by the /IGNORE qualifier.

6    /LOG (D)

    Controls whether CMS displays success and informational messages
    on the default output device. By default, if the command executes
    successfully, CMS displays a success message. If you specify
    /NOLOG, success and informational messages are suppressed. Any
    warning, error, or fatal error messages are displayed regardless
    of whether /LOG or /NOLOG is specified.

7    /OCCLUDE[=option,...]

    Controls whether CMS selects the first instance of the specified
    object, or all instances of the specified object in the library
    search list. The options field contains one or more keywords
    associated with the name of the object. The options field can
    contain the following keywords:

       ALL--equivalent to (ELEMENT, CLASS)
       ELEMENT (D)
       NOELEMENT
       CLASS (D)
       NOCLASS
       NONE--equivalent to (NOELEMENT, NOCLASS)

    You can specify either ALL or NONE, or any combination of the
    [NO]ELEMENT and [NO]CLASS keywords.

    By default, CMS performs occlusion for all objects; that is, CMS
    selects only the first occurrence of a specified object.

8    /OUTPUT[=file-specification]

    Directs CMS to write output to the specified file. CMS creates a
    new file if you do not specify /APPEND. If you omit the /OUTPUT
    qualifier (or if you specify /OUTPUT but do not provide a file
    specification), CMS creates a file with the file name specified in
    the file1 parameter and the file type .DIF. If you specify a file
    name but omit the file type component, CMS writes the output to a
    file with the specified file name and a file type of .DIF.

9    /NOOUTPUT

    Directs CMS to execute a comparison without creating an output
    file. This form of the comparison may be significantly faster
    because CMS stops the transaction when it encounters the first
    difference.

10    /PAGE_BREAK

    Controls whether CMS allows page breaks in the output file. By
    default, page breaks are converted to the string "<PAGE>" in the
    output file. Use /PAGE_BREAK to request the inclusion of page
    breaks in the output file.

11    /PARALLEL

    Controls whether the differing lines from the two files are
    formatted side by side. If you specify /PARALLEL, the differences
    from the first file are displayed on the left and the differences
    from the second file are displayed on the right. The heading of
    the differences report displays the file specification of the
    first file on the left and the file specification of the second
    file on the right.

    By default, the width of the listing is 132. Use the /WIDTH
    qualifier to control the width. Vertical lines separate the text
    on the left side of the report from the text on the right side.
    The text from each of the files is allotted equal space (half the
    width of the full report).

    If a line from one of the files being compared is longer than half
    the width of the full report, the line is truncated on the right.
    An asterisk (*) is printed at the end of the line to indicate
    that the line has been truncated.

12    /SENTINEL=("begin-delimiter", "end-delimiter")

    Specifies a pair of strings used to delimit a section of text to
    be ignored during the comparison of both files. The delimiters
    can be up to 256 characters per line, and must be unique. Any text
    between and including the delimiters is treated as if it did not
    exist. If you do not enclose the sentinel strings in quotation
    marks, they are converted to uppercase before the comparison of
    the files. Sentinel strings may contain any characters, but if you
    include spaces or tabs, they must be enclosed in quotation marks.

    Sentinel strings can appear anywhere in a file. If text delimited
    by a sentinel pair crosses record boundaries, the text after the
    delimited region appears in its own record in the output file; it
    is not appended to the contents of the record in which the begin
    delimiter was found.

13    /SKIP=number-of-lines

    Indicates the number of lines at the beginning of each file (or
    generation) that are to be ignored during the comparison of both
    files. You must specify a nonnegative integer value indicating the
    number of lines to be ignored.

14    /WIDTH=n

    Specifies the limit for the width of the differences report. The
    value n is required and must be an integer in the range 48 to 511.
    If n is less than 48, 48 is used. If n is more than 511, 511 is
    used. The default width is the same as the width of the output
    device.

    The width of the report is rounded down to the nearest multiple
    of 8 minus 1. CMS rounds down so that if you have specified the
    /PARALLEL qualifier, CMS correctly interprets the horizontal tabs
    in the file on the right. Thus, for example, if you specify a
    value of 100 on the /WIDTH qualifier, the actual width is 95.
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