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From: leichter@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU ("Jerry Leichter")
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: RE: DCL numeric symbol creation??
Message-ID: <8709120130.AA11423@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Fri, 11-Sep-87 16:27:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8709120130.AA11423
Posted: Fri Sep 11 16:27:00 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Sep-87 21:49:25 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: "Jerry Leichter" <leichter@venus.ycc.yale.edu>
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 31


	Does anyone out there know how to create a numeric DCL symbol from a
	program.  Sometimes the string capability is just not right.  The only
	way I have been able to do this so far is to do a $EXIT with a
	parameter equal to the value I want to set (ORed with %X10000000 to
	turn off message display).  This sets $status with the value I want
	and I can then use this in succeeding operations.   Does anyone know
	DEC's rationale for not providing this facility?

As you surmise, there is no way to do this - the only way to set symbols from
a program is with LIB$SET_SYMBOL, and it sets only strings.

Providing a rationale for why something ISN'T present is kind of tricky:  Any
question of this form - "What's DEC's rationale for displaying numeric symbols
in SHOW SYMBOL in decimal, octal, and hex - but not in binary?" - can be
answered in exactly the same way:  Insufficient perceived utility (value)
versus excessive implementation effort (cost).  Note that even a very small
cost may be unjustifiable if there is a sufficiently small perceived value.

You say:  "Sometimes the string capability is just not right".  Why?  It's
trivial to convert an integer into string form for the call to LIB$SET_SYMBOL,
then convert it back to integer form with the F$INTEGER lexical function.
Speed and space are not an issue when using DCL - except for rather unusual
situations, any design tradeoffs you make are swamped by large fixed costs in
DCL anyway.

Your example only needs to return a single integer value, and it does so on
termination.  If this is all you want to do, you can use LIB$DO_COMMAND to
execute an appropriate DCL assignment statement.
							-- Jerry
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