Technical data

Customizing the Operating System
5.6 Customizing the Help Message Database
for a description of the files that you must manipulate to customize the Help
Message database.
Note
Currently, user-supplied comments or additions to Compaq supplied
.MSGHLP$DATA files are not preserved through the next upgrade.
However, your own .MSGHLP$DATA files are not affected by future
releases.
You can reuse .MSGHLP files to insert your own messages into future
Compaq supplied database files. Depending on the data format in future
databases, you might also be able to reuse some .MSGHLP files to insert
comments.
5.6.1 Accessing $STATUS Values for Uninstalled Messages
Any messages that are not installed as part of the OpenVMS operating system
cannot be equated with a value stored in $STATUS until they are recognized
by the system. When the Help Message utility attempts to translate the value
stored in $STATUS or a value specified with the /STATUS qualifier, the search
can fail if the value does not equate to an installed message or a message that
was linked into the Help Message utility when it was created by Compaq. You
can make your system recognize such uninstalled messages. These messages
include user-supplied messages, third-party messages, and messages from layered
products and certain other OpenVMS facilities.
How to Perform This Task
1. Use the Help Message qualifier /SECTION_FILE=* to include all the
OpenVMS supplied message section files that have not already been linked
into the main Help Message program, MSGHLP$MAIN.EXE:
$ HELP/MESSAGE/SECTION_FILE=*
This command generates a user-modifiable object library,
SYS$LIBRARY:MSGHLP$MESSAGE_SECTIONS.OLB. Each module in
this library contains a pointer to a message section .EXE file. You can use the
/SECTION_FILE qualifier to insert additional modules into this library. (See
the following steps.)
Note
This HELP/MESSAGE command produces results similar to, but entirely
separate from those effected by the SET MESSAGE filespec command.
The Help Message utility does not interact with the Message utility. If
you want both utilities to translate the same set of message sections, you
must separately code each utility to do so. It is perfectly acceptable to
have each utility point to different message section files.
When you use the /SECTION_FILE qualifier to create the object library or
add modules to it, the MSGHLP$MESSAGE_SECTIONS.EXE file is also
automatically created from all the modules in the object library and is placed
in your default directory. When you finish modifying the object library, you
must copy the final .EXE file to SYS$COMMON:[SYSLIB] (logical name
SYS$LIBRARY).
5–26 Customizing the Operating System