VMS Help Lexicals, F$PARSE, Arguments  *Conan The Librarian (sorry for the slow response - running on an old VAX)

 filespec

    Specifies a character string containing the file specification to
    be parsed.

    The file specification can contain the asterisk (*)  and the
    percent sign (%) wildcard characters. If you use a wildcard
    character, the file specification returned by the F$PARSE
    function contains the wildcard.

 default-spec

    Specifies a character string containing the default file
    specification.

    The fields in the default file specification are substituted in
    the output string if a particular field in the filespec argument
    is missing. You can make further substitutions in the filespec
    argument by using the related-spec argument.

 related-spec

    Specifies a character string containing the related file
    specification.

    The fields in the related file specification are substituted in
    the output string if a particular field is missing from both the
    filespec and default-spec arguments.

 field

    Specifies a character string containing the name of a field
    in a file specification. Specifying the field argument causes
    the F$PARSE function to return a specific portion of a file
    specification.

    Specify one of the following field names (do not abbreviate):

    NODE       Node name
    DEVICE     Device name
    DIRECTORY  Directory name
    NAME       File name
    TYPE       File type
    VERSION    File version number

 parse-type

    Specifies the type of parsing to be performed. By default,
    the F$PARSE function verifies that the directory in the file
    specification exists on the device in the file specification;
    however, the existence of the directory is not verified if you
    provide a field argument. Note that the device and directory can
    be explicitly given in one of the arguments, or can be provided
    by default.

    Also, by default the F$PARSE function translates logical names if
    they are provided in any of the arguments. The F$PARSE function
    stops iterative translation when it encounters a logical name
    with the CONCEALED attribute.

    You can change how the F$PARSE function parses a file
    specification by using one of the following keywords:

    NO_CONCEAL  Ignores the "conceal" attribute in the translation
                of a logical name as part of the file specification;
                that is, logical name translation does not end when a
                concealed logical name is encountered.
    SYNTAX_     The syntax of the file specification is checked
    ONLY        without verifying that the specified directory exists
                on the specified device.