[Info-vax] Notable VMS "feature"

[VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG]

In article <n8bj49$u3u$1 at Iltempo.Update.UU.SE>, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> writes:
>On 2016-01-27 12:54, VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
>> In article <n89ec2$1bpl$1 at gioia.aioe.org>, George Cornelius <cornelius at charter.NOWHERE.net> writes:
>>> On 01/26/2016 06:31 AM, Jess Goodman wrote:
>>>> On Sunday, January 24, 2016 at 3:40:18 PM UTC-5, gcorn... at charter.net wrote:
>>>>> gcornelius at charter.net wrote:
>>>>>> gcornelius at charter.net wrote:
>>>>>>> The rest is of course stolen from you.
>>>>>
>>>>> Except the part where I forgot the parentheses
>>>>> about istat.and.1 in the if statement.
>>>>>
>>>>> I believe the simplified form
>>>>>
>>>>> 	if (istat.and.1)  ! no .eq.1
>>>>>
>>>>> would work, though, so no need to have compared
>>>>> the results of the .and. to 1.
>>>>>
>>>>> George
>>>
>>>> Actually in VMS Fortran (and in DCL) only the low-order bit of a
>>>> logical value determines if it is TRUE or FALSE.  I remember this
>>>> as "truth is odd".  And since for VMS status values "success is
>>>> odd" you can code this way:
>>>
>>> And I code that way in DCL. In Fortran, which is
>>> a standards-based language, I have begun to think
>>> that even if it is low bit only it is best to make
>>> it explicit.
>>
>> Then wouldn't be be more "explicit) with...
>>
>>          INCLUDE '($STSDEF)'
>>
>>          if (istat.and.STS$M_SUCCESS)
>
>Isn't there a mask that contains all the bits that should be checked for 
>status? And then you should really mask istat with that, and check if 
>the masked value equals success?

"M" ;)

-- 
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker    VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG

I speak to machines with the voice of humanity.