Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdcad!ames!umd5!mimsy!oddjob!hao!gatech!ufcsv!codas!burl!clyde!watmath!orchid!egisin
From: egisin@orchid.waterloo.edu (Eric Gisin)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: exit(-1)
Message-ID: <12214@orchid.waterloo.edu>
Date: 8 Jan 88 21:57:43 GMT
References: <502@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> <6935@brl-smoke.ARPA> <1179@wjvax.UUCP> <10089@mimsy.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 10

> The `problem' is that VMS programmers need access to the full range
> of VMS status values.  There are many sub-fields to a VMS status.

VMS C programmers have always had sys$exit() to return VMS status values.
There is no excuse for making exit() synonymous with sys$exit --
something like the following would have been better and Unix compatible.

exit(i) {
	sys$exit((i==0) ? SS$_NORMAL : SS$_CFAILURE);
}