OpenVMS RTL General Purpose (OTS$) Manual

This document serves as a detailed usage and reference guide for system and application programmers using the general-purpose routines within the OTS$ facility of the OpenVMS Run-Time Library. Published in May 1993, it supports OpenVMS AXP Version 1.5 and OpenVMS VAX Version 6.0.

The manual outlines the seven primary tasks performed by the OTS$ routines:

1. Data Type Conversion: Converting values between various data types, such as floating-point to character strings, and integers to binary, decimal, octal, or hexadecimal text, and vice-versa.
2. Complex and Packed Decimal Division: Performing division operations on complex numbers and packed decimal values.
3. Data Movement: Moving data, with or without padding (fill).
4. Complex Multiplication: Multiplying complex values.
5. Exponentiation: Raising various types of bases (complex, D-floating, F-floating, G-floating, H-floating, word integer, longword integer, unsigned longword integer) to different exponents (complex, floating-point, signed longword integer, unsigned longword integer).
6. String Copying: Copying source strings to destination strings, supporting different methods of passing strings (by descriptor or by reference).
7. Dynamic String Storage Management: Allocating and freeing dynamic string memory areas.

The document provides a general overview of the OTS$ facility and detailed reference information for each routine, including their formats, arguments, return values, and condition values signaled. These routines, originally designed for language compilers, were moved to a language-independent facility due to their broad utility.