[Info-vax] VAX VMS going forward

[Craig A. Berry]

On 7/29/20 8:08 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 7/29/2020 4:13 PM, John Dallman wrote:
>> Can one build a program where pointers to data are /always/ 64-bit? Since
>> I'd be porting code that is expecting uniform memory addressing, rather
>> than dealing with different realms of data, that would make life much
>> simpler.
> 
> $ CC/POINTER=64 ...
> 
> should go a long way.
> 
>> However, that gives me the problem that I can only call functions that
>> take 64-bit pointers. Is the standard C library all set up for that? How
>> about the threading functions? Those categories are all I need.
> 
> C User Guide section 1.7.3 has a little about it.
> 
> Also see John Reagan's reply.
> 
> In general I believe that if you have correct portable C
> code then you will be in a pretty good shape with VMS
> and 64 bit pointers.

Actually, it's only code written for VMS using native 64-bit interfaces
that is likely to work with 64-bit pointers.  Portable code would have
to live without the following from table 1-8 of the CRTL manual:

atexit         frexp           ioctl           setbuf
execv          getopt          modf            setstate
execve         iconv           putenv          setvbuf
execvp         initstate

The problem is not the length of the list but what's on it.  It's hard
to imagine a full-featured, portable program that does not use getopt,
the exec family of functions, and ioctl.

In the case of the OP, a math library might be ok, but the user of that
library who wants to write a program would have some hoops to jump through.