/BY_REF_CALL

  Causes character constants used as actual arguments in calls to
  routines to be passed by reference (%REF) instead of by descriptor
  (%DESCR).  This helps applications that pass quoted character
  constants to numeric dummy parameters, such as applications ported
  from OpenVMS VAX systems that rely on the OpenVMS VAX Linker, to
  change the argument passing mechanism for character constant actual
  arguments.

  The "routine-list" is a list of one or more routine names (in
  parentheses); it can contain "*" wild-carding.

  The default is to always pass character constant actual arguments
  by descriptor.