[Info-vax] Home-grown application process dumps

[cmexec at gmail.com]

On Tuesday, January 6, 2015 1:05:20 AM UTC-5, David Froble wrote:

> I agree with what you wrote, until this paragraph.  Maybe I don't 
> understand what you wrote, but, my impression is that when working with 
> a descriptor, VMS will not write past the defined length of the data.

That depends on the descriptor and the routine.  Descriptors can indicate
variable length, and many LIB routines will change the allocated size to
match the data size (check out the STR$ routines).  No VMS routine will
change the allocated size if the descriptor indicates fixed length.  Many
VMS routines will not change the size even if the descriptor indicates
variable length, but a lot of those take separate length and address
arguments instead of a descriptor.

HLL routines, such as those in the Fortran library, behave as specified
by the language standard.  I don't think there are any variable length routines
in the F9x standards supported by VMS Fortran.  IIRC, BASIC is better in this
area, but I don't do enough BASIC to be sure.