[Info-vax] VAX Macro to C conversion

[Simon Clubley]

On 2019-07-25, Craig A. Berry <craigberry at nospam.mac.com> wrote:
>
> Notice BTW that neither I nor Hoff ever said anything about string
> descriptors nor counted strings, so why you chose to bring those up in
> this discussion is a mystery.
>

Because of what I initially read into the discussion.

String handling discussions on comp.os.vms tend to follow the path of
saying that ASCIZ strings are a horrible idea (which they are) and
then go on to say (or strongly imply) that VMS's use of counted strings
and/or descriptors are some magical solution that solves the buffer
overflow problem completely on VMS (which it doesn't; it just makes
them harder to compromise).

That's where I thought the discussion was going once again when I
initially read it.

>
> There are differences of opinion about which interfaces are least likely
> to be subject to programmer mistakes, but the basic principle of
> checking buffer boundaries but also stopping on a NUL byte are the same.
> And totally different from how descriptors and counted strings work.

Counted strings, descriptors and null terminated strings are all
implemented differently, but they all have the same goal of identifying
a block of memory as a string to anyone interested in working with
that string.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world