Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!zodiac!meridian!pkahn
From: pkahn@meridian.ads.com (Phil Kahn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Global variables from XCMD/XFCN
Message-ID: <4432@zodiac.UUCP>
Date: 16 Jun 88 17:57:29 GMT
Sender: news@zodiac.UUCP
Reply-To: pkahn@ads.com (Phil Kahn)
Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Mt. View, CA (415) 960-7457
Lines: 16

I got the Hypercard Script Language Guide from APDA along with the 
Hypercard Developer's Toolkit ($30 total) and together they provide
enough information to effectively write XCMD/XFCNs.

Problem is, the Language Guide states that XCMD/XFCN cannot use global
variables.  Though globals are sloppy, they are sometimes justified.
For example, I want to drive a digitizer board from hypercard.  There
is board base address and status information that is best kept global
without explicit reference from hypercard.  How can I do this?  Or do
I need to pass pointers back to hypercard.  Since hypercard wants
strings, I'd have to coerce to string and back to pointer on the next
call.  It seems this would only work for pointers to scalars. I can't
see how pointers to records/structs would work from the hypercard side.

All pointers :-) are appreciated.

phil...