Figure 6-6. System Files in Use

System-de￿ned ￿le designators indicate ￿les that the File System uniquely iden ti￿es as standard input/output devices for jobs and sessions.

These designators are:

$STDIN ; the standard job or session input device from whic h your job or session is initiated.

$STDINX ; the same as $STDIN , except handling of MPE/iX command images is di￿eren t.

$STDLIST ; standard job or session listing device.

$NULL; name of a ￿le that is alwa ys treated as an empt y ￿le.

These designators are useful in redirecting program input and output to standard devices.

For detailed information on system-de￿ned ￿les, refer to Accessing Files Pr ogrammer's Guide (32650-90017).

You can use a formal ￿le designator in a program to specify a system-de￿ned ￿le. F or example, a program can specify the system-de￿ned ￿le name $STDLIST to make output appear on a terminal; or it can assign output to $NULL to test a program to see if it compiles and runs to completion, where the actual output is not needed. Figure 6-7 sho ws examples of using a system de￿ned ￿le.

File System 6-13