[Info-vax] Fortran problem with QIO

[Ken Fairfield]

On Dec 7, 10:31 am, glen herrmannsfeldt <g... at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> Ken Fairfield <ken.fairfi... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> (snip)
>
> > To the OP, you need to know that VAX Fortran
> > passes most arguments by reference (address),
> > with the exception of CHARACTER variables,
> > which are always passed by descriptor (as
> > noted by other posters).
>
> As I understand it, CHARACTER variables are passed by
> descriptor, as you say.  At LINK time, is the dummy argument
> is not CHARACTER it is converted from descriptor to reference
> form, allowing Fortran 66 style calls where the actual argument
> is another type, such as INTEGER.

First, apologies for my post-in-haste...a bunch of typos there lay!

One being "VAX" Fortran, when I really meant VMS Fortran.
But that doesn't much matter.   The linker on VAX did fix up
these old F66-style argument mismatches.  However, that
"feature", which was really an extension to help with IBM Fortran
compatibility and to allow old (wrong) code to compile.  It was
*dropped* with the port to Alpha (and Integrity), as well as in
the new F90 compiler.

In any case, it's irrelevant to the present discussion since
we're talking about calling VMS system services.  The
system services are very picking about arguments being
passed by the documented mechanism.  If you can't read
the documentation and call the routine correctly, you've no
business using the system services (directly). :-)

   -Ken