Arguments

 

resultant-string

   OpenVMS usage:char_string
   type:         character string
   access:       write only
   mechanism:    by descriptor

   String that LIB$GET_FOREIGN uses to receive the foreign
   command line. The resultant-string argument is the address of
   a descriptor pointing to this string. If the foreign command
   text returned was obtained by a prompt to SYS$INPUT (see the
   description of flags), the text is translated to uppercase so as
   to be more consistent with text returned from the CLI.
 

prompt-string

   OpenVMS usage:char_string
   type:         character string
   access:       read only
   mechanism:    by descriptor

   Optional user-supplied prompt for text that LIB$GET_FOREIGN uses
   if no command-line text is available. The prompt-string argument
   is the address of a descriptor pointing to the user prompt.
   If omitted, no prompting is performed. It is recommended that
   prompt-string be specified. If prompt-string is omitted and if
   no command-line text is available, a zero-length string will be
   returned.
 

resultant-length

   OpenVMS usage:word_unsigned
   type:         word (unsigned)
   access:       write only
   mechanism:    by reference

   Number of bytes written into resultant-string by LIB$GET_FOREIGN,
   not counting padding in the case of a fixed-length resultant-
   string. The resultant-length argument is the address of an
   unsigned word into which LIB$GET_FOREIGN writes the number of
   bytes.
 

flags

   OpenVMS usage:mask_longword
   type:         longword (unsigned)
   access:       modify
   mechanism:    by reference

   Value that LIB$GET_FOREIGN uses to control whether or not
   prompting is to be performed. The flags argument is the address
   of an unsigned longword integer containing this value. If the low
   bit of flags is zero, or if flags is omitted, prompting is done
   only if the CLI does not return a command line. If the low bit is
   1, prompting is done unconditionally. If specified, flags is set
   to 1 before returning to the caller.

   The primary use of flags is to allow a utility program to be
   invoked once with subcommand text on the command line, and then
   to repeatedly prompt for further subcommands from SYS$INPUT. This
   is accomplished by calling LIB$GET_FOREIGN repeatedly, specifying
   in the call a prompt-string string and a flags variable that
   is initialized to zero at the beginning of the program. The
   first call gets the subcommand text from the command line, after
   which flags will be set to 1, causing further subcommands to be
   requested through prompts to SYS$INPUT.