Xref: utzoo comp.os.vms:17240 comp.sys.dec:1760
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!dptg!rutgers!iuvax!mailrus!ncar!tank!iitmax!ed
From: ed@iitmax.IIT.EDU (Ed Federmeyer)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms,comp.sys.dec
Subject: RTL+System Routine Definitions Wanted
Message-ID: <2648@iitmax.IIT.EDU>
Date: 30 Aug 89 21:47:10 GMT
Reply-To: ed@iitmax.iit.edu (Ed Federmeyer)
Organization: Illinois Institute of Technology
Lines: 44

One of the things I dislike most about writing programs that use system
services and run-time-library routines is that I have to define them as
external in my code.   While I should be happy to be able to do this at all,
it makes the code look sloppy (cluttered?, unreadable?)  If I write my code
in FORTRAN, I can INCLUDE ('$SYSSRVNAM'), which then lets me use the routines
as if they were a built in part of the language, which is what I want...
Unfortunatly, I'm not crazy about FORTRAN.  What might be nice would be
some include files for Pascal that define the VMS data structures,
and the RTL routine function declarations.  Then I could (quickly) write
something like:

TYPE
	%INCLUDE 'VMS_DATA_STRUCTURES.PAS'
VAR
	somevariable	: IO_STATUS_BLOCK;
 (without having to define TYPE IO_STATUS_BLOCK, for example)

And later I could (quickly) write something like:

	%INCLUDE 'LIB_ROUTINES_DEF.PAS'
	...
	BEGIN {main}
	status := LIB$GET_INPUT( an_input_string , 'Data: ' );
  (without having to explictly define the LIB$ routines, for example.)

This seems like it could really cut down the programming time, and that
someone out there has such definition include files already made.

Are such things available?  I am mainly interested in public domain,
(anonymous ftp, BITNET servers and the like) however, I would also be
interested to hear about commercial packages.  (For example DEC's own
Common Data Dictionary)

By the way, I'm not only interested in Pascal, these types of definition
files for ANY language would be great.

Thanks!
Ed Federmeyer 	(ed@iitMax.iit.edu) (sysed@iitVax.bitnet)
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