[Info-vax] Screen management in C

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 12/27/2024 9:24 AM, David Meyer wrote:
> If I want to do screen management in a C program on OpenVMS, is it
> better to use one of the curses packages in the C run-time library, or
> the SMG$ run-time library? If the latter, is there any documentation on
> how to call SMG$ routines from C?

If you do not have any existing code using curses or personal
experience with curses, then I would suggest SMG$.

There is an entire manual about SMG$:

https://docs.vmssoftware.com/vsi-openvms-rtl-screen-management-smg-manual/

There is a C header file with prototypes:

#include <smg$routines.h>

Because SMG$ are supporting Pascal/Basic/Cobol/Fortran then
many arguments are pass by descriptor and you will need to setup
those in C, so some familiarity with descriptors will be required.

Arne