Overview of Profile Parameters

This document provides information on the profile parameters that can be set in the NATPARM parameter file (or an alternative parameter file).

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The individual parameters are divided into the following parameter groups according to their functions.

This section lists all parameters that can be set with the Configuration Utility. However, if you are not an administrator, not all of these parameters are displayed. Some parameters can only be seen and thus set by users who are defined as administrators (see also Administrator Assignments in the local configuration file).

For a full description of all available profile parameters, see the Parameter Reference or follow the links provided in this section.


Database Management

This parameter group contains the following categories:

See also: Database Management System Assignments in the global configuration file.

General Parameters

The following profile parameters apply to the supported database management systems.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Database updating DBUPD
Execution of END/BACKOUT TRANSACTION ET
ET at end of program ETEOP
ET upon terminal I/O ETIO

Adabas Specific

If Natural is used with Adabas, review the following profile parameters and, if necessary, adjust the default values to meet your specific requirements.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Adabas user identification ETID
Multifetch MFSET
Terminate when no ISN found with FIND statement RCFIND
Terminate when no ISN found with GET statement RCGET
Record hold processing WH
Adabas OPEN/CLOSE processing OPRB

Administrator DBMS Assignment

The following profile parameters are used to assign administrator-specific database management system settings.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Administrator logical files LFILE
Translation of file number TF

User DBMS Assignment

The following profile parameters are used to assign user-specific database management system settings.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
User database ID UDB
Database for transaction data ETDB
User logical files LFILE

Natural Execution Configuration

This parameter group contains the following categories:

Batch Mode

The profile parameters which affect the batch mode behavior of Natural are arranged on the following pages:

See also Natural in Batch Mode in the Operations documentation.

Channels

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Input data file name CMOBJIN
Input data code page CPOBJIN
Input commands file name CMSYNIN
Input commands code page CPSYNIN
Output file name CMPRINT
Output code page CPPRINT
Natural log NATLOG
Enable error processing CC

Appearance

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Similar output BMSIM
Display input data ECHO
Display session-end message ENDMSG
Display trailing blanks BMBLANK
Display control characters BMCONTROL
Display process time BMTIME
Display window title BMTITLE
Display Natural version BMVERSION

Frame Characters

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Frame characters BMFRAME

Buffer Sizes

Natural uses several buffer areas for the storage of programs and data. You may need to adjust their sizes in order to achieve maximum buffer efficiency.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Storage for sort program SORTSIZE
Source area size SSIZE
Work area size USIZE
SAG editor buffer pool size EDTBPSIZE
SAG editor logical files EDTLFILES

See also Buffer Pool Assignments in the local configuration file.

Character Assignments

The following profile parameters are used to change default character assignments.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Terminal command character CF
Clear key character CLEAR
Decimal character DC
Filler character FC
Help character HI
Input assign character IA
Input delimiter character ID
Thousands separator character THSEPCH

Once a character has been defined to replace a default character, this character cannot be used as data.

Command Execution

The following profile parameters are used to control the execution of commands.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Enable command mode CM
Enable terminal command %% and % ESCAPE
Disable Natural commands NC
Dynamic recataloging RECAT

Date Representation

The following profile parameters are used to control the representation of dates.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Date format in output DFOUT
Date format in STACK DFSTACK
Date format in report titles DFTITLE
Date format DTFORM
Maximum year MAXYEAR
Year sliding window YSLW

Device/Report Assignments

These parameters are used to modify your screen and printer configurations as well as your report assignments.

See also the profile parameter CMPRTnn which is used for additional reports in batch mode.

Device Assignments

The device assignments are shown in a scrollable list of configurable logical devices (VIDEO and the logical printers LPT1 to LPT31) as used in the DEFINE PRINTER statement. The following information can be changed:

Close mode

You can select a different close mode for each logical printer. Possible values are:

Close Mode Description
Auto Printers are automatically closed at the end of a program or when the execution of a called method is terminated. This is the default setting.
User Closing of printers is controlled by the user. The printer is closed, if one of the following conditions is met:

Notes:

  1. Instead of using the device TRANSFER, it is recommended to use a logical printer device (one of LPT1 to LPT31) where the device destination of the physical output device has been set to the value "E" (send data to an Entire Connection terminal). See also Defining Printers in the Natural Connection documentation.
  2. If the device TRANSFER is used in the report assignments, the close mode for this device is determined as follows: The report number to which the device TRANSFER has been allocated is used as the device number (for example, for report number 2 the device LPT2 is used). The close mode that is defined for this device is also used as the close mode setting for the device TRANSFER.

The following program example describes the user-controlled closing of printers. Note that the close mode must be first set in the parameter file.

DEFINE DATA
  LOCAL
  1 #OUT (A8)
END-DEFINE
*
#OUT := *PROGRAM
*
* Write to report with close mode "user"
WRITE (1) 'OUTPUT PROGRAM: ' #OUT
*
* Write to report with close mode "auto"
WRITE (2) 'OUTPUT PROGRAM: ' #OUT
*
* Close printer 1
* Printer 1 is user-controlled
CLOSE PRINTER (1)
*
END
Line Size

See the description of the LS parameter.

Page Size

See the description of the PS parameter.

Max. Pages

See the description of the MP parameter.

Physical Output Device

The path and/or name of the program, script (including any arguments) or file that should receive the print data. Programs and scripts can read the incoming print data via stdin.

For example, you can specify the standard print command of your printer spooler with all options as described below.

  • For UNIX System V:

    lp options
  • For BSD-UNIX:

    lpr options

Line size, page size and maximum page number should be compatible with your hardware printer assignments.

Device Destination

Determines how Natural should interpret the information in the Physical Output Device field.

Option Description
F If "F" is specified, this is assumed to be a file specification.
D If "D" is specified, this is assumed to be a command or script.
E If "E" is specified, all data that are written to this logical printer are sent to an Entire Connection terminal. That is: output data which normally appear on the screen are written into an NCD file. See also Defining Printers in the Natural Connection documentation.

Note:
The following applies to the Physical Output Device field if the Device Destination field has been set to "F". As with work files, a file name can be defined by using environment variables. Any existing file of the same name at the specified location is normally overwritten, unless the entered file name is immediately prefixed by two right angle bracket characters (>>).

Report Assignments

The report assignments are shown in a scrollable list in which you can assign a Natural report number (report 1 to report 31) to a logical device name. The following information can be changed:

Override default report number

See the Parameter Reference for a description of the profile parameter MAINPR.

Device

For each report number, you can select another output medium. Possible values are (you can also press PF2 to select one of these values):

Value Description
LPT1 to LPT31 Outputs the report data to the corresponding physical device (see the Physical Output Device field in the device assignments).
SOURCE Outputs the report data to the source area. The user can then, for example, issue the EDIT command to open the output data in the editor and save it accordingly.
DUMMY Report data are discarded.
INFOLINE Report data are sent to the infoline. See also the description of the terminal command %X.
NOM Prints to an Entire Output Management container file without using the spool of the operating system. Refer to the Entire Output Management documentation for details.

Report 0 is always implicitly assigned to VIDEO (that is, the output is shown on the screen). No other report number can be assigned to VIDEO.

Profile

In addition to the name of the logical device, you can assign a printer profile that has been defined in the Printer Profiles node of the global configuration file. All defined printer profiles can be selected by pressing F2. Select the blank entry if you do not want to use any of these profiles.

Error Handling

The following profile parameters are used to control error handling within Natural.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Error processing for PA/PF keys IKEY
Display system error messages in full MSGSF
Automatic REINPUT REINP
Sound terminal alarm SA
Sound bell on syntax error SNAT
Zero division ZD
Suppress message number prefix NAT NOAPPLERR
Allow runtime interrupt RTINT

Field Appearance

The following profile parameters influence I/O handling.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Control variable modified at input CVMIN
Filler chars protected FCDP
Enable lowercase LC
Numeric fields entry NENTRY
Overwriting protected OPF
Zero printing ZP
Print mode PM

Limits

The following profile parameters are used to prevent a single program from consuming an excessive amount of internal resources.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Error on loop limit LE
Processing loop limit LT
Maximum number of DBMS calls MADIO
Maximum number of program calls MAXCL
Size of page data set PD
System time delay SD

Program Loading and Deletion

The following profile parameters are used to control the dynamic loading and deletion of programs.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Dynamic loading of non-Natural programs CDYNAM
Allow dynamic parameter DYNPARM
Release GDA in utility mode FREEGDA
Read only access to system files ROSY
Buffer pool search first BPSFI
Error transaction program name ETA
Program command line parameter PRGPAR
Program to receive control after Natural termination PROGRAM
Natural stack command line STACK

Regional Settings

The following profile parameters are used to control the country- or region-specific settings of Natural.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Day differential DD
Time differential TD
User language ULANG
Use UTF-8 format for sources SUTF8
Retain source format SRETAIN
Code page conversion error CPCVERR
Default code page CP
Substitution character SUBCHAR
Display order of output data DO

Report Parameters

The following profile parameters are used to control various attributes of Natural reports.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Page eject EJ
Numeric edit mask free mode EMFM
Line size LS
Page size PS
Spacing factor SF
Default input terminal mode IM

Steplibs

The following parameters are used to manage the steplibs.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
*STEPLIB STEPLIB
Steplib Extension For information on how to define additional steplibs and how to use the columns in this table, see Additional Steplib Assignments below.

Additional Steplib Assignments

You can define up to eight libraries that can be searched for objects which cannot be found in the current library. These additional steplibs are defined in a table. The steplib number is shown in the first column. The following information can be specified:

Name

The name of an existing library.

DBID

The database ID of the file system where the library is located.

FNR

The file number of the file system where the library is located.

Note:
The following application programming interfaces are available for handling multiple steplibs: USR3025N (when Natural Security is not installed) and USR4025N (when Natural Security is installed).

System Files

The following profile parameters are used to specify the Natural system files.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
FNAT (Natural system file for system programs) FNAT
FUSER (Natural system file for user programs) FUSER
FSEC (Natural Security system file) FSEC
FDIC (Predict system file) FDIC
FDDM (Natural system file for DDMs) FDDM

The physical location of each system file is defined in the global configuration file. See System Files in the global configuration file.

System Variables

The following profile parameters are used to adjust Natural system variables for the start of a Natural session.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Automatic logon AUTO
Startup library INIT-LIB
Startup program STARTUP
User ID USER

See also the System Variables documentation.

Note:
You can use the command line parameter PARM to specify a specific Natural parameter file at session startup. This parameter can only be specified dynamically, therefore, it cannot be modified or viewed within the Configuration Utility.

Work Files

The following profile parameters can be used to specify work file settings.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Entire Connection protocol mode ECPMOD
Entire Connection local NCF protocol NCFVERS
PC support PC
Max. work file number WORK
Alternate sort work file names TMPSORTUNIQ
Work file open on first access WFOPFA
Work files For information on how to define work files and how to use the columns in this table, see Work File Assignments below.

See also the profile parameter CMWRKnn which applies to batch mode.

See also Work Files in the Operations documentation.

Work File Assignments

The work file assignments are shown in a scrollable list containing work files with the numbers 1 to 32. The work file number is shown in the first column. When a work file name has already been defined for a work file number, this information (path and name) is shown in the Name column.

The following information can be changed:

Type

For each work file number, you can select another work file type. Possible values are (you can also press PF2 to select one of these values):

Work File Type Description
Default Determines the file type from the extension for upward compatibility.
Transfer Used to transfer data to and from a PC with Entire Connection. This work file type represents a data connection between a Natural session on UNIX or OpenVMS and an Entire Connection terminal on a PC. The work file data is written in Entire Connection format on the PC.
SAG Binary format.
ASCII Text files with records terminated by a linefeed (LF).

When you press PF4, you can change the properties for this work file type: a dialog box appears in which you can specify the following information:

Code page

You can specify the code page that is to be used for writing the work file (ICU code page name; IANA name recommended). When a code page is not defined here, the default code page defined with CP is used.

ASCII compressed ASCII format where all trailing blanks are removed.

When you press PF4, you can change the properties for this work file type: a dialog box appears in which you can specify the following information:

Code page

You can specify the code page that is to be used for writing the work file (ICU code page name; IANA name recommended). When a code page is not defined here, the default code page defined with CP is used.

Entire Connection With this work file type, you can read and write (for example, with the statements READ WORK FILE and WRITE WORK FILE) directly to a work file in Entire Connection format on the local disk.

Note:
No transfer to a PC is possible. The Entire Connection terminal is not used in this process.

Unformatted A completely unformatted file. No formatting information is written (neither for fields nor for records).

When you press PF4, you can change the properties for this work file type: a dialog box appears in which you can specify the following information:

Code page

You can specify the code page that is to be used for writing the work file (ICU code page name; IANA name recommended). When a code page is not defined here, the default code page defined with CP is used.

Portable Files which can handle dynamic variables exactly and can also be transported (for example, from a little endian machine to a big endian machine, and vice versa).
CSV Comma-separated values. Each record is written to one line in the file. By default, a header is not written. The default character which is used to separate the data fields is a semicolon (;).

When you press PF4, you can change the properties for this work file type: a dialog box appears in which you can specify the following information:

Header

When set to "ON", a header with the Natural field names is written to the file.

Separator character

You can select a different separator character. If you require a separator character which is not listed, you can enter it.

Code page

You can specify the code page that is to be used for writing the work file (ICU code page name; IANA name recommended). When a code page is not defined here, the default code page defined with CP is used.

For information on the work file formats which result from a specific work file type, see Work File Formats in the Operations documentation.

Close mode

You can select a different close mode for each work file. Possible values are:

Close Mode Description
Auto This is the default setting. Work files are automatically closed at the end of a program or when the execution of the first called method in a method call hierarchy is terminated and the first called method was called over COM.

If the first called method was called locally (not over COM), the work files are not closed.

Example: Method A (called over COM) invokes method B which in turn invokes method C. When the execution of method A is terminated, all work files are closed.

User Closing of work files is controlled by the user. The work file is closed, if one of the following conditions is met:

The following program example describes the user-controlled closing of work files. Note that the close mode must be first set in the parameter file.

DEFINE DATA
  LOCAL
  1 #OUT (A8)
END-DEFINE
*
#OUT := *PROGRAM
*
* Write to work file with close mode "user"
WRITE WORK 1 'OUTPUT PROGRAM: ' #OUT
*
* Write to work file with close mode "auto"
WRITE WORK 2 'OUTPUT PROGRAM: ' #OUT
*
* Close work file 1
* Work file 1 is user-controlled
CLOSE WORK FILE 1
*
END
Attributes

You can define different attributes for each work file. You can specify one attribute for each of the following categories:

Category Possible Attributes Default Attribute Description
Append mode NOAPPEND or APPEND NOAPPEND Decides whether new data overwrites the current data in the work file or whether new data is appended at the end of the current data.
Keep/delete work file after close KEEP or DELETE KEEP Decides whether the work file is kept after closing it or whether it is deleted.
Write byte order mark (BOM) BOM or NOBOM NOBOM Decides whether a byte order mark is written in front of the work file data.

Only available for the work file types which write code page data: ASCII, ASCII compressed, Unformatted and CSV. For these work file types, the attribute BOM can only be set, if the code page UTF-8 is defined for the work file (see the description of the Type column).

If a work file of another type is written or a code page other than UTF-8 is defined, the specification of the attribute BOM is ignored during runtime.

See also Work Files and Print Files on Windows, UNIX and OpenVMS Platforms in the Unicode and Code Page Support documentation.

Remove/keep carriage return REMOVECR or KEEPCR REMOVECR Decides whether carriage return characters are removed when reading an ASCII work file or whether they are kept.

Only available for the following work file types: ASCII and ASCII compressed. If one of the attributes is set for another work file type, it is ignored during runtime.

Warning:
Use KEEPCR with care. ASCII format is only recommended for alphanumeric data. Binary data should not be processed with ASCII work files. When you use KEEPCR, the work file record may include carriage return characters.

The use of KEEPCR only makes sense when reading ASCII work files which have been written on UNIX or OpenVMS. It does not make sense to use KEEPCR with ASCII work files which have been written on Windows.

Attributes cannot be defined for the work file type "Transfer".

You can enter a unique abbreviation for each attribute. The delimiter character can be one of the following: blank, comma(,) or semicolon (;). Example: "a, d" which stands for APPEND and DELETE.

You can only specify one attribute for each category. You can specify them in any sequence. When no attributes are specified in the table, the default values are used.

Name

Specify the location (path and name) of the work file.

See also Defining Work File Names with Environment Variables in the Operations documentation.

Natural Development Environment

This parameter group contains the following categories:

Compiler Options

The following profile parameters are used to set options for the Natural compiler.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Compiler output CO
Interpretation of database field short names DBSHORT
Dump generation DU
Length/format specification FS
Keyword checking KCHECK
Structured mode SM
Generate symbol tables SYMGEN
Syntax error control SYNERR
Dynamic thousands separator THSEP
Translate quotation marks TQMARK
MASK compatible with MOVE EDITED MASKCME
Parameter checking for CALLNAT statement PCHECK
Internal sign representation of format P PSIGNF
Endian mode ENDIAN
Generation of global format identifiers GFID
Active cross reference XREF

See also the description of the system command COMPOPT.

Editor Options

The following profile parameter is used to set an option for the Natural editor.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Renumber line numbers in constants RNCONST

Environment Assignments

The following profile parameters are used to adjust Natural environment variables.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Other editor EDITOR
Usage of editor ring buffer EDTRB
Access to operating system from Natural SHELL

Remote Debugging

The following profile parameters are used to allow for remote debugging.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Remote debugging RDACTIVE
Node name RDNODE
Port number RDPORT

Product Configuration

This parameter group contains the following categories:

Entire Transaction Propagator

The following profile parameters are used in conjunction with Software AG's Entire Transaction Propagator.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
ETP database list ETPDB
Size of ETP work area ETPSIZE

Entire System Server

The following profile parameter is used in conjunction with Software AG's Entire System Server Interface.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
ESX database ESXDB

Function Keys

The following profile parameter is used to assign values to PA, PF and CLEAR keys.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
CLR, PA1 to PA3, PF1 to PF24 KEY

Web I/O Interface

The following profile parameter is used for Unicode support with the Natural Web I/O Interface.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Web I/O Interface WEBIO

Client/Server

This parameter group contains the following categories:

HTTP Parameters

The following profile parameter is used to provide HTTP support.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Timeout for REQUEST DOCUMENT RQTOUT

Remote Dictionary Access

The following profile parameter is used for remote dictionary access.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Name of logical dictionary server USEDIC

When a logical dictionary server has been defined in the global configuration file, you can specify its name here. See Dictionary Server Assignments in the global configuration file.

Remote Procedure Call

The profile parameters which apply to the Natural Remote Procedure Call (RPC) are grouped under the following headings:

RPC (General)

These profile parameters apply to both client and server.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Request buffer size (KB) MAXBUFF
ACI version ACIVERS
Code page CPRPC

RPC (Client)

These profile parameters apply to the client only.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Automated remote execution AUTORPC
Retry service on alternative server TRYALT
Send-buffer compression COMPR
Request timeout (sec) TIMEOUT
Default server DFS
Remote directory servers RDS
Library for service directory RPCSDIR

RPC (Server)

These profile parameters apply to the server only.

Option See the Parameter Reference for a description of this profile parameter
Start session as RPC server SERVER
Logon required for server request LOGONRQ
Server name SRVNAME
Server node SRVNODE
Server user ID SRVUSER
Server wait time (sec) SRVWAIT
Number of reconnect attempts SRVRTRY
Wait time between attempts
Server termination event SRVTERM
Server commit time SRVCMIT
Transport protocol TRANSP
RPC trace level TRACE
Trace on error