Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!rochester!cornell!uw-beaver!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!CITHEX.CALTECH.EDU!carl
From: carl@CITHEX.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Use of RMS from VAX C
Message-ID: <880217030426.37c@CitHex.Caltech.Edu>
Date: 17 Feb 88 11:08:09 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 17


 > I'm trying to use the RMS services $PARSE and $SEARCH to process wildcard file
 > specifications. However, the VAX C compiler (V2.3) flags an error "Invalid
 > right operand of an &= operator" at this statement:
 > 
 > file_fab.fab$l_nam=&file_nam;

The problem is that your statement is ambiguous.  It could mean either
	file_fab.fab$l_nam = &file_nam;
or
	file_fab.fab$l_nam =& file_nam;
which, under the original specifications for C is equivalent to
	file_fab.fab$l_nam &= file_nam;
The VAX C compiler is apparently interpreting it as the latter.  The =& is
probably still accepted for compatibility reasons.  The solution is to change
your statement to
	file_fab.fab$l_nam = &file_nam;