VAX C Language Summary

This document, titled "VAX C Language Summary," published by Digital Equipment Corporation in April 1985 (Order No. AA-P788B-TE), serves as a comprehensive reference for programmers using VAX C on VAX/VMS systems (Version 4.0 or later, VAX C Version 2.0).

The summary details:

• Digital Command Language (DCL) Commands: Covers the CC (compile) and LINK commands, along with their various qualifiers for managing compilation and linking processes. It also outlines the necessary libraries for linking VAX C Run-Time Library functions (e.g., VAXCCURSE, VAXCRTLG, VAXCRTL).
• VAX C Language Constructs: Provides an overview of data type keywords (including 32-bit, 16-bit, and 8-bit integers, floating-point formats, aggregate types, enumerated types, and void), storage class specifiers (e.g., auto, static, extern, globaldef, globalref, globalvalue), storage class modifiers (readonly, noshare), operator precedence, statement syntax, arithmetic and function argument conversion rules, and VAX C escape sequences.
• Preprocessor Control Lines: Lists directives such as #define, #undef, #include, and conditional compilation (#if, #ifdef, #ifndef).
• Record Management Services (RMS): Describes the general syntax for RMS functions and provides a list of RMS modules (e.g., fab, rab, nam, xaball) and their corresponding structure tags and initialization prototypes.
• VAX C Run-Time Library Functions and Macros: Features an extensive, alphabetized listing of functions and macros, including their syntax, arguments, and return values. This section covers a wide range of functionalities such as mathematical operations (e.g., abs, sin, cos, log), file and directory management (e.g., access, chdir, chmod, creat, open, read, write), process control (e.g., abort, exit, kill, sleep, vfork), string manipulation (e.g., strcat, strcpy, strlen), character classification (e.g., isalnum, isalpha, isdigit), terminal screen management (Curses functions like addch, box, clrtoeol, initscr), and argument list handling (va_arg, va_start, va_count). Many of these functions and macros are noted for their VAX C-specific implementations or limited functionality.

The document is intended as a concise and structured reference for VAX C programmers.