B.4.2 Installing gawk on a Tandem

The Tandem port is only minimally supported. The port's contributor no longer has access to a Tandem system.

The Tandem port was done on a Cyclone machine running D20. The port is pretty clean and all facilities seem to work except for the I/O piping facilities (see section Using getline from a Pipe, Using getline into a Variable from a Pipe, and Redirecting Output of print and printf), which is just too foreign a concept for Tandem.

To build a Tandem executable from source, download all of the files so that the file names on the Tandem box conform to the restrictions of D20. For example, `array.c' becomes `ARRAYC', and `awk.h' becomes `AWKH'. The totally Tandem-specific files are in the `tandem' "subvolume" (`unsupported/tandem' in the gawk distribution) and should be copied to the main source directory before building gawk.

The file `compit' can then be used to compile and bind an executable. Alas, there is no configure or make.

Usage is the same as for Unix, except that D20 requires all `{' and `}' characters to be escaped with `~' on the command line (but not in script files). Also, the standard Tandem syntax for `/in filename,out filename/' must be used instead of the usual Unix `<' and `>' for file redirection. (Redirection options on getline, print etc., are supported.)

The `-mr val' option (see section Command-Line Options) has been "stolen" to enable Tandem users to process fixed-length records with no "end-of-line" character. That is, `-mr 74' tells gawk to read the input file as fixed 74-byte records.