


vmsish(3p)       Perl Programmers Reference Guide      vmsish(3p)


NAME
       vmsish - Perl pragma to control VMS-specific language
       features

SYNOPSIS
           use vmsish;

           use vmsish 'status';        # or '$?'
           use vmsish 'exit';
           use vmsish 'time';

           use vmsish 'hushed';
           no vmsish 'hushed';
           vmsish::hushed($hush);

           use vmsish;
           no vmsish 'time';

DESCRIPTION
       If no import list is supplied, all possible VMS-specific
       features are assumed.  Currently, there are four VMS-
       specific features available: 'status' (a.k.a '$?'),
       'exit', 'time' and 'hushed'.

       If you're not running VMS, this module does nothing.

       "vmsish status"
             This makes $? and "system" return the native VMS
             exit status instead of emulating the POSIX exit
             status.

       "vmsish exit"
             This makes "exit 1" produce a successful exit (with
             status SS$_NORMAL), instead of emulating UNIX
             exit(), which considers "exit 1" to indicate an
             error.  As with the CRTL's exit() function, "exit 0"
             is also mapped to an exit status of SS$_NORMAL, and
             any other argument to exit() is used directly as
             Perl's exit status.

       "vmsish time"
             This makes all times relative to the local time
             zone, instead of the default of Universal Time
             (a.k.a Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT).

       "vmsish hushed"
             This suppresses printing of VMS status messages to
             SYS$OUTPUT and SYS$ERROR if Perl terminates with an
             error status.  and allows programs that are
             expecting "unix-style" Perl to avoid having to parse
             VMS error messages.  It does not suppress any
             messages from Perl itself, just the messages
             generated by DCL after Perl exits.  The DCL symbol
             $STATUS will still have the termination status, but



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vmsish(3p)       Perl Programmers Reference Guide      vmsish(3p)


             with a high-order bit set:

             EXAMPLE:
                 $ perl -e"exit 44;"
             Non-hushed error exit
                 %SYSTEM-F-ABORT, abort
             DCL message
                 $ show sym $STATUS
                   $STATUS == "%X0000002C"

                 $ perl -e"use vmsish qw(hushed); exit 44;"      Hushed error exit
                 $ show sym $STATUS
                   $STATUS == "%X1000002C"

             The 'hushed' flag has a global scope during
             compilation: the exit() or die() commands that are
             compiled after 'vmsish hushed' will be hushed when
             they are executed.  Doing a "no vmsish 'hushed'"
             turns off the hushed flag.

             The status of the hushed flag also affects output of
             VMS error messages from compilation errors.   Again,
             you still get the Perl error message (and the code
             in $STATUS)

             EXAMPLE:
                 use vmsish 'hushed';    # turn on hushed flag
                 use Carp;          # Carp compiled hushed
                 exit 44;           # will be hushed
                 croak('I die');    # will be hushed
                 no vmsish 'hushed';     # turn off hushed flag
                 exit 44;           # will not be hushed
                 croak('I die2'):   # WILL be hushed, croak was
             compiled hushed

             You can also control the 'hushed' flag at run-time,
             using the built-in routine vmsish::hushed().
             Without argument, it returns the hushed status.
             Since vmsish::hushed is built-in, you do not need to
             "use vmsish" to call it.

             EXAMPLE:
                 if ($quiet_exit) {
                     vmsish::hushed(1);
                 }
                 print "Sssshhhh...I'm hushed...\n" if
             vmsish::hushed();
                 exit 44;

             Note that an exit() or die() that is compiled
             'hushed' because of "use vmsish" is not un-hushed by
             calling vmsish::hushed(0) at runtime.

             The messages from error exits from inside the Perl



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vmsish(3p)       Perl Programmers Reference Guide      vmsish(3p)


             core are generally more serious, and are not
             suppressed.

       See "Pragmatic Modules" in perlmod.





















































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