Changing the Default Directory

It might seem that the above facilities provide all we need. Unfortunately things are not that simple. The problem is that VMS only provides the facility to issue a DCL command in a subprocess, not in the process we are actually running ICL in. Thus although we can issue any DCL command we cannot issue DCL commands in the process we are running ICL in. In many cases this does not matter, the command will have the same effect whatever process it is issued from.

However, this is not always the case. One example is changing the default directory -- this can be done using the ICL command $ SET DEFAULT. This will change the default directory of the DCL subprocess, but not of the process running ICL.

Thus an additional ICL command DEFAULT (which may be abbreviated to DEF) has been provided. This changes the default directory of both the process running ICL and the DCL subprocess (if one exists). The format for specifying the directory is exactly the same as that accepted by the DCL SET DEFAULT command.