VAX DEC/MMS

This document serves as a comprehensive user's guide for the VAX DEC/MMS (Module Management System), a tool designed to automate and simplify the building of software systems on the VAX/VMS operating system (Version 3.4 or later). It caters to software engineers, managers, and technical writers, especially those familiar with the UNIX make utility.

The guide explains how to use MMS by creating "description files" that define dependencies between software components and specify the actions MMS should perform to update them. Key features covered include:

• Dependency Rules: How to define relationships between target and source files, along with action lines for updates.
• Built-in and User-defined Rules: Leveraging predefined rules for common tasks or creating custom ones.
• Macro Definitions: Using macros to simplify description files and manage compilation qualifiers.
• Directives: Control mechanisms like .IGNORE, .SILENT, .DEFAULT, .SUFFIXES, .INCLUDE, .FIRST, .LAST, and conditional processing (.IFDEF, .ELSE, .ENDIF).
• Action Line Prefixes: Modifiers for individual action lines.
• Library Access: How MMS interacts with files in VAX/VMS, DEC/CMS (Code Management System), VAX FMS (Forms Management System) libraries, and VAX CDD (Common Data Dictionary) records.
• MMS Command: A detailed explanation of the MMS command syntax and its various qualifiers, such as /ACTION, /CHECK_STATUS, /CMS, /DESCRIPTION, /FROM_SOURCES, /HELP, /IGNORE, /LOG, /MACRO, /OUTPUT, /OVERRIDE, /REVISE_DATE, /RULES, /SKIP_INTERMEDIATE, and /VERIFY.
• Examples: Practical illustrations of MMS techniques for common tasks like checking file freshness, fetching and building, gathering statistics, and selectively deleting files.

Version 2.0 introduces significant enhancements, including improved built-in rules and macros, new directives and command qualifiers, support for default rules files, automatic access to CMS libraries, integration with VAX FMS and CDD (Versions 2.1+), wildcard support for library modules, optimized subprocess management for reduced resource quotas, and enhanced error checking with more descriptive messages. The document also includes appendices for built-in features, a comparison with UNIX make, and a list of MMS messages.