[Info-vax] completion status from LIB$SPAWN

[StGallen]

1. For the benefit of anyone reading this thread, the above is described in the C manual.

2. The value 268435457 (in decimal) is same as %X10000001 in HEXA and 1 in decimal is same as 1 in HEXA.

$ say F$message(%X00000001)
%SYSTEM-S-NORMAL, normal successful completion

$ say F$message(%X10000001)
%SYSTEM-S-NORMAL, normal successful completion

So both 268435457 & 1 are status codes for normal completion. However, the constant SS$_NORMAL is defined to be 1. 

So the question remains: why would VMS return 2 values for Normal Completion?
How are programmers expected to handle it without going the route of the procedure posted by Briggs above.

P.S: In case anyone wants to know :
268435457 in DECIMAL is 10000000000000000000000000001 in BINARY.
assuming the right most position is position 0, the left most position is 28. Bit 27 is clear so it is a message from HP. Bits 15 to 3 are clear. Severity 2-0 is 1 which implies SUCCESS.