The MPE Name Space

The MPE Name Space

The MPE Name Space is that part of the total HFS (Hierarchical File Space) that would have been legal in the original MPE directory. The MPE name space is a three-level hierarchical structure; all filenames are in the form file.group.account (for example, ci.pub.sys). An MPE file may have an optional eight-character lockword which is separated from the filename by a slash (e.g., god/secret23.pub.vesoft).

Names in the MPE Name Space may only contain upper case letters and numerals, must start with a letter, and are 1 to 8 characters long. Unlike in UNIX, the names are not case sensitive and may not contain characters such as the underscore (_), dot (.) and dash (-). This applies to filenames, group names, account names and lockwords. An MPE Name Space file always resides in an MPE group of an MPE account. On a POSIX version of MPE, the accounts are always subdirectories of the root directory, with groups as subdirectories of each account.

Here are some files in the MPE Name Space and their equivalent names in the Hierarchical File System:

   DAYS.COBSRC.DEV    		/DEV/COBSRC/DAYS
   weeks.cobsrc.dev		/DEV/COBSRC/WEEKS
   Cob85xl.Pub.Sys		/SYS/PUB/COB85XL

By default, in MPE commands a filename is assumed to be in the MPE Name Space. Therefore, :purge abc looks for "ABC", not "abc". If you want to refer to a file in the HFS, put a Dot (.) or Slash (/) in front of it. For example, :purge ./abc looks for "abc" in the Current Working Directory.