The NFT program is used to access files on remote systems over DECnet
or ANF-10. The remote files can be listed (on your terminal),
deleted, copied from system to system, renamed, queued to a line
printer, or submitted to the batch processor. NFT can perform the
same functions on the local system as well as the remote system.
The NFT program can be run by using the following monitor command:
.R NFT<RET>
*
* is the command prompt. To the prompt you can type a command string
in the following format:
*command file-spec=file-spec
This construct varies with the command that you are using. The
file-spec is a file specification which includes any or all of the
following:
node::dev:[dir]file.ext.gen/USERID:user:account:password/swt
Where "node" is the network node name (or blank for the local host),
"dev" is the device or file structure name, "dir" is the file
directory containing the file, "file" is the file name, "ext" is the
file extension or file type "gen" is the file generation number, and
"swt" is/are any file switches desired. The usual TOPS-10 file spec
wildcarding rules apply (although the various remote file systems may
be more restrictive). /USERID specifies access information for the
file, and can optionally take the three arguments
(userid:account:password). See below for more information about
/USERID.
Some commands (e.g., DELETE) require no output specification, and for
these commands the equal sign should also be omitted. Other commands
(e.g., EXIT) take no arguments.
The NFT commands are:
COPY copy files from one system to another or one file
structure to another.
DDT enter DDT (if DDT is present).
DELETE delete the specified file(s).
DIRECT list the file(s) on your terminal.
EXIT exit from NFT to monitor level.
HELP display information about the commands that are
available.
NETWRK display information about network nodes
PRINT print a file (queue to system line printer spooler).
RENAME rename a file (an output file must be specified on the
left-hand side of the equal sign).
SUBMIT submit a batch control file to the batch job processor.
TYPE display the contents of a file on your terminal.
DDELETE delete a single file quickly.
DDIRECT list a single file quickly.
DRENAME rename a single file quickly.
DSUBMIT submit a single batch control file quickly.
FAL enter FAL mode.
You may include the /USERID switch for each file specification. The
/USERID switch can be included in your SWITCH.INI file after the NFT
command. The /USERID switch requires up to three arguments in the
following format:
/USERID:userid:account:password
Each argument corresponds to account information for the specific
system. If you do not include some of the arguments, NFT will prompt
you for them. The userid may be your PPN or user name, optionally
enclosed in <> or []. The account can be omitted if defaulted by the
system, but you must include the colon (:) if you specify the
password.
Other general switches that can be specified for any NFT command are:
/[NO]MOAN see warning messages about problems.
/[NO]OKERROR prevent NFT from aborting the command on an error
/TOTALS:arg control the information in the totals summary.
Arguments are: BITS, BYTES, WORDS, RECORDS, BLOCKS,
PAGES, FILES, BAUD, and ERRORS.
The COPY and TYPE commands accept certain switches that apply only to
these operations. Those switches are:
/[NO]ARROW convert control characters to up-arrow format.
/[NO]BAUD show the baud rate of the transfer in the summary.
/[NO]CONCAT concatenate (combine) the input files into one output
file.
/CRLF:nn specify the column at which to place
carriage-return/line-feed characters into the file.
/[NO]CSN place card sequence numbers on each line in the file.
/CSNCOL:nn specify starting column for card sequence numbers.
/CSNINC:nn specify the incremental value for card sequence
numbers.
/CSNWID:nn specify the number of digits in the card sequence
numbers.
/DIAL:number dial the phone number that you specify.
/EBCDIC read data in EBCDIC format.
/FLAG:arg specify the type of characters to flag. The arguments
are UPPER and LOWER. NFT will place a single-quote
character (') before each uppercase or lowercase
character.
/[NO]LSN generate line sequence numbers for each line (record).
/[NO]LSNCON continue line sequence numbers over page boundaries.
/LSNINC:nn specify the incremental value for line sequence
numbers.
/[NO]NULLS preserve ASCII null characters in the file.
/[NO]SPACES convert ASCII tab characters into ASCII space
characters.
/[NO]TABS convert multiple spaces into tab characters.
/[NO]TRUNCA suppress trailing ASCII blanks (spaces, tabs).
/WRAP:nn insert a carriage-return/line-feed for the first space
or tab after the specified number of characters on each
line.
For more on-line information about the NFT program, refer to the
NFT.MAN file distributed with DECnet-10. Use of the NFT program is
documented in the DECnet-10 User's Guide.
Accessing Files On Different Types of Systems
File Generation Numbers
Although TOPS-10 does not support file generation numbers, NFT does
accept them. The generation number is always preceded by a "."
character (yes, even if a VAX or a RSX or other system which normally
uses ";"). Naturally, this requirestht the generation number must
follow the file extension (which is also preceded by a "."
character!).
TOPS-10 systems
In general, you need do nothing special in order to talk to remote
TOPS-10 nodes with NFT-10. Files will automatically be copied in all
the right modes, protections, and so on.
FAL-10 will default the userid to a generic "network" userid if the
remote accessor doesn't supply one explicitly. As such, if you access
the -10 from a remote node, you may not need to give a userid if the
file you are accessing is sufficiently unprotected (e.g., to read a
file on a -10 generally doesn't require a userid, to write a file on a
-10 generally does).
TOPS-20 systems
In general, you need do nothing special in order to talk to remote
TOPS-20 nodes with NFT-10. Files will automatically be copied in a
fair semblance of the original file (7-bit files will be copied as
ASCII files, all others will be copied as 36-bit binary (or IMAGE))
files. Non-contiguous files cannot be copied.
RSX systems
In general, ASCII files copy correctly from the RSX with no special
action required on behalf of the user. Sometimes however you will
have to explicitly specify /ASCII (clue: if you get the error message
"Illegal ASCII record attributes for IMAGE/BINARY data" you must
specify /ASCII).
To read or write binary files however is a pain. To read a RSX binary
file, you must specify that the file is binary (/BINARY), and what
size bytes it has (/BYTESIZE:8). In general, you do not need to
supply any record formatting information.
To store a RSX binary file on the -10 in such a way that you can give
it back to the RSX and have the RSX be able to understand it, you must
use MACY11 format. Simply put /MACY11 on the -10 file spec and all
(well, the binary file anyway) will work well.
To write a RSX binary file, you mus speify that the file is binary
(/BINARY), what size bytes it has (/BYTESIZE:8), and what type of
records the file should contain (/RECFORMAT: FIXED or VARIABLE). If
FIXED length records are specified, then you must also specify the
record size explicity (/RECSIZE:size). Additionally, some RSX binary
files require that they be contiguous on the disk (/CONTIGUOUS). RSX
task images (.TSK files) are of this sort. If contiguous allocation
is required then the file allocation must be prespecified - either
explicitly via /ALLOCATE (or /ESTIMATE) or implicitly via the "input"
file allocation. In the later case the /BLOCKSIZE switch must be used
to enable NFT to convert the input file size into the corresponding
output file size (measured in "blocks").
For example:
*TYPE RSX::PROG.FOR
*COPY FOO = RSX::PROG.FOR
*COPY RSX::PROG.FOR = FOO.FOR
*COPY FOO/MACY11 = RSX::PROG.OBJ/BINARY/BYTESIZE:8
*COPY RSX::PROG.OBJ/BIN/BYT:8/RECFORMAT:VARIABLE = FOO.OBJ/MACY11
*COPY FOO/MACY11 = RSX::PROG.TSK/BINA/BYTES:8
*COPY RSX::/BIN/BYT:8/FIX/EC:512/BLOC:512/CONTI = FOO.TSK/MACY
VAX systems
Overall, VAX systems are pretty much indistinguishable from RSX
systems (as described above).
.KJOB