VMS Help DCE_CDS, cdscp, DESCRIPTION, Elements of a CDS Command  *Conan The Librarian (sorry for the slow response - running on an old VAX)

   All CDS control program commands must include a verb, an entity name,
   and all required arguments.  Depending on the command, you can also
   specify optional arguments and attributes.  A space must separate
   more than one attribute or argument. A space must precede and follow
   an equal sign (=).

1 - Verbs

   The following is a list of the definitions of verbs used in control
   program commands:

   add       Adds a value to a modifiable, set-valued attribute

   clear     Removes knowledge of a cached clearinghouse or cached
             server from memory

   create    Creates an entity

   define    Creates knowledge of a locally cached server

   delete    Deletes an entity

   disable   Stops operation of a clerk or server

   dump      Displays the contents of a clerk cache

   list      Displays a list of specified entity names

   remove    Removes a value from a set-valued or single-valued
             attribute

   set       Changes the value of a modifiable, single-valued
             attribute

   show      Displays attribute information

2 - Entity Names

   Any individually manageable piece of CDS is called an entity.  A
   set of commands exists for each entity. The following is a list of
   the entities and a description of what each entity represents:

   Cached Clearinghouse
             A cached clearinghouse is a clearinghouse that a clerk
             has discovered and cached.  A clerk can learn about
             clearinghouses as a result of configuration information,
             advertisements received on a LAN, or during the process
             of finding a name.

   Cached Server
             A cached server is a server that a clerk has cached as
             a result of manual configuration through the control
             program.

   Child     A child pointer connects a parent and child directory in
             a hierarchical namespace. The child pointer is stored in
             the parent directory and has the same name as the child
             directory.

   Clearinghouse
             A clearinghouse is a database containing a collection of
             directory replicas at a particular server.

   Clerk     The clerk is the interface between client applications
             and servers.

   Directory A directory contains child, object, and link entries that
             are logically stored under one name (the directory name).

   Link      A soft link is a pointer providing an alternate name for
             an object entry, directory, or other soft link.

   Object    An object entry represents a resource (for example, an
             application) that is named in the namespace.

   Replica   A replica is a copy of a directory. Each copy, including
             the original or master, is referred to as a replica.

   Server    A server handles lookup requests from clerks and
             maintains the contents of the clearinghouse or
             clearinghouses at its node.

3 - Attributes

   Every CDS entity has attributes, which are pieces or sets of data
   associated with that entity.  Attributes can reflect or affect the
   operational behavior of an entity, record the number of times a
   particular event or problem occurred since the entity was last
   enabled, and uniquely distinguish an entity from any other entity.
   Some attributes have a single value; others contain a set of values.

   CDS attributes are identified by ISO object identifiers (OIDs).
   Every CDS attribute name maps to an OID and a corresponding data
   type.  Usually, client applications define the name of an attribute
   and its data type.  Application programmers should never need to
   modify (except for the purpose of foreign language translation) the
   existing CDS labels associated with the unique OIDs in the
   cds_attributes file.  However, programmers can obtain new OIDs from
   the appropriate allocation authority, create new attributes for
   their own object entries, and then append them to the existing list.
   The OID and data type of each attribute are stored in the file
   DCE$COMMON:[ETC]CDS_ATTRIBUTES.DAT.  Descriptions of the CDS data
   types that applications can use are in the cdsclerk.h file.

   All entities have show commands that you can use to display the
   names and values of specific attributes or all attributes.  When
   you display an attribute that has more than one value, the show
   command lists each value for the attribute separately.  When there
   are multiple values for an attribute, the command first lists the
   attribute name on a line ending with a colon, then the parts of the
   value.

   For more information about CDS attributes, see the DCE Directory
   Service module in the DCE Administration Guide.