[Info-vax] VMS internals design, was: Re: BASIC and AST routines

[Dave Froble]

On 12/1/2021 10:52 AM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> On 2021-12-01 02:11:19 +0000, Phil Howell said:
>
>> You are not  alone in your confusion
>> See this post from a long time ago
>> https://community.hpe.com/t5/Operating-System-OpenVMS/AST-routine-and-C-language-va-count-va-start-va-end-etc/td-p/4878940#.YabUqew8arU
>>
>
> I'd forgotten about that thread.
>
> What a wonderfully inconsistent trashfire ASTs are.
>
> Somebody at VSI probably now has some (more) writing to do, and some (more) of
> the existing documentation to review.
>
> And it seems some BASIC declaration somewhere for the AST API is arguably busted.
>
> Ah, well.
>
>

I'm a bit afraid to ask another question.  The last question I asked seemed to 
start weeks of, not sure what to call it, but some of it was rather nasty.

Oh, well, another question.

I haven't done any research, so the question might have a simple answer.

When as AST is specified while calling a system service, and an AST parameter 
can be specified, other than following the docs, what causes me to need to 
specify 5 parameters in the AST subroutine?  Unless I declare the subroutine 
with 5 parameters, I don't know what might enforce such a requirement.

Ok, I really should just go and try it myself, but, I'm lazy.  Anyone have a 
simple answer?

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David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
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