[Info-vax] Looking into C-include files on VMS

[JF Mezei]

Joerg Schilling wrote:

> What do you understand by AST? I know AST as "Advanced Software Technology" 
> Library from Davod Korn.


Asynchronous System Trap.

Think of it as a completion routine that is called by the driver when an
operation completed and the AST executes in the full context of the
user's process.

And AST can be used to signal that an IO operation has completed, or
that a timer has elapsed etc etc.

And AST driven program can theorically do a "hibernate" (sleep) in its
main line code after having called a few routines, and let the OS call
the ASTs whenever events happen.