[Info-vax] completion status from LIB$SPAWN

[Michael Moroney]

Hein RMS van den Heuvel <heinvandenheuvel at gmail.com> writes:

>On Friday, April 27, 2012 10:34:33 AM UTC-4, David Froble wrote:
>> StGallen wrote:
>:
>> specifies success or failure.  Don't test the value, do a mask comparison, ie;
>> 
>> If (Stat% And SS$_NORMAL)
>> Then Print "Success"
>> Else Print "Failure"
>> End If

>I beg to differ. That's disgusting code. 
>It may work, but does not does what it suggest.

>SS$_NORMAL is NOT a bitmask, it is a word value.
>That only works because you know its value is 1.
>If so, then IMHO it is better just write that: stat & 1
>Or use  STS$M_SUCCESS as mentioned earlier,
>Or use a 16-bit-word-compare.

Very true, and I see it all the time. I've learned to overlook/ignore it.
When I write code, I just use "1".