Computers: Universe: UniVerse and UNIX

Accounts

A UniVerse account is a UNIX directory containing what might be termed the basic UniVerse 'file set'.

The easiest way to create a UniVerse account is to create an empty UNIX directory, cd to it, and enter the 'uv' command to invoke UniVerse. The UniVerse bin directory contains its executable: if it is not on your path, you will have to enter the full path to the command: something like /universe/bin/uv.

UniVerse will display:

This is not a valid UniVerse account.
Would you like to make it one?

Enter a Y in reply, and you will be offered a choice of Universe 'flavours' (see above: About UniVerse). My own background is in Prime INFORMATION, and that is the flavour used by the EDS team at the Cape of Good Hope bank who form the immediate audience for this guide, so I shall assume you choose the Prime INFORMATION flavour: the differences, though, are generally minor.

A few indecipherable messages will scroll past your screen as UniVerse copies its basic 'file set' into its account, and you will be left at the UniVerse > prompt you will soon grow to love.

At this point, it might be instructive to have a peek at the UNIX directory underlying this UniVerse account. You will discover at this point that none of the UNIX commands you have spent years coming to terms with work from the UniVerse prompt (with one or two minor exceptions) as UniVerse has its own command language. The first command in this language you will now learn: SH opens a UNIX command shell from 'inside' UniVerse. Enter this command know, and at the Unix prompt enter the 'ls' command to take a look.

You will notice six five files and a directory. The files are VOC, D_VOC, VOCLIB, D_VOCLIB, and D_&SAVEDLISTS&: the directory &SAVEDLISTS&. By now you will have noticed several unsettling things:

1. UniVerse commands and filenames are almost entirely in UPPER CASE. Later you will also discover that the keywords and variable names in its programming language Universe Basic are also in upper case. This is a surprise and sometimes a problem for UNIX people, whose 'caps lock' key has usually rusted over from lack of use. Get used to it.

The & character appears appears in two of these names: in fact, it is a favourite of PICK people and appears in the names of many system files, So much so that the UK's leading Prime INFORMATION software house was called &Ampersand Systems Ltd. Be careful when typing these names under UNIX to prefix the & symbols with a backslash, thus: \&SAVEDLISTS\&. You will kick off a lot of phantom processes (which is what & is used for under UNIX) until you get used to this.

3. You had to go to UNIX to get a view of the physical structure of the underlying directory. This is because UniVerse takes a completely different view of what is going on: instead of five UNIX files and one UNIX directory, it can see three UniVerse files complete with 'dictionaries'. What this means you will discover soon, but for now the distinction is worth bearing in mind. UNIX and UniVerse 'files' are related, but are not one to one and not even always under the same names. For this reason, tinkering with the contents of a UniVerse account from UNIX usually causes problems, as UNIX doesn't understand UniVerse and tends to trample across its carefully laid structures: take care until you know how the two systems relate.

Don't forget to enter the UNIX exit command to close the UNIX shell and return to UniVerse...