[Info-vax] Any Way to Pass Arrays of Strings from C to Basic?

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 11/9/2019 12:20 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 11/9/2019 11:47 AM, John Reagan wrote:
>> On Friday, November 8, 2019 at 2:10:56 PM UTC-5, Dave Froble wrote:
>>> Now, most of the VMS languages play rather well in such an environment.
>>> Then there is C, which does not play well in that environment.  There is
>>> the VMS calling standard, and, there is the VMS data types.  Use them,
>>> and things can work well.  C is not a native VMS language, as far as I
>>> know, and doesn't embrace the calling standard, nor the data types.
>>>
>>
>> Huh?!?!?  Of course it does.
> 
> What subset of VMS data types are supported by C ?

Maybe you need to clarify what you mean by "supported".

With C you can send and receive anything in the calling standard(at 
least I think so), but it may require some code. Is that "supported"?

Or do you by "supported" mean that C has something that automatically
get passed correctly without the programming having to do anything?

>> Descriptors are a mess.
> 
> You've been listening to Steve too much.
> 
> Anything can be improved.  However, descriptors, as a concept, are a 
> whole bunch better than not having descriptors, or something better.

I agree.

And it is what most modern languages do. They pass something
that has both information about what is being passed and a reference
to the actual data.

It is not called a descriptor. But I cannot see why it should not
be considered a descriptor.

Arne