[Info-vax] Calling standards, was: Re: Byte range locking - was Re: Oracle on VMS

[Simon Clubley]

On 2016-11-22, Robert A. Brooks <FIRST.LAST at vmssoftware.com> wrote:
> On 11/21/2016 11:27 PM, David Froble wrote:
>>
>> From the little reading I've done, I see several things that either
>> puzzle me, disgust me, or both.
>>
>> SSIO appears to be something that is for C, not for VMS.  I'd think
>> that if such work was to be done, it would be for VMS, usable by any
>> languages on VMS.
>
> It was done primarily for Unix/Linux portability, where the vast majority
> of stuff was written in C.  That's not as true now as it was a decade ago,
> however.
>

However, at the very lowest levels of those code bases, the majority
still calls into a C API regardless of what the rest of the code is
written in. This makes the C API on Unix/Linux the Unix/Linux
equivalent of the common calling standard on VMS.

The main issue I have with the C APIs are the lack of counted strings
or descriptors for string handling (which annoys me) but that doesn't
change the fact that the C API _is_ the common calling standard for
Unix/Linux.

Also note that the VMS common calling standard and APIs only directly
work with traditional procedural code.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
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