[Info-vax] COBOL, <gack!> again! Return status.

[Brian Schenkenberger]

On 2023-09-15 00:31:26 +0000, Stephen Hoffman said:

> On 2023-09-11 19:01:26 +0000, Brian Schenkenberger said:
> 
>> How does a COBOL program return a status (ie. R0) to a calling program? 
>> I found a reference to RETURN-CODE but compiler balks at that.
> 
> If it doesn't need to be portable COBOL, which seems likely given SYS$MGBLSC...
> 
> CALL "SYS$EXIT" USING BY VALUE RETURN-STATUS
> And for errors...
> 
> CALL "LIB$SIGNAL" USING BY VALUE ERROR-STATUS

Those would have stopped everything. I was writing a program in COBOL 
for a customer which they could call to access data in a global 
section.  Sure, I could have witten it in a real language but I thought 
I'd give them some "food for thought" and show them how to call VMS 
system services and RTLs.

This exercise was something I hope I don't have to repeat. ;)