About LIB$FIND_FILE

[Kai.Zou]

Hi, newbie here.
Could any expert tell me about LIB$FIND_FILE:
1. When only 3 parameter was used, what is the default value of the "flags" parameter?

2. When VM is cirtial, LIB$FIND_FILE will also probably fall. At this time, the resultant-filespec argument(the 2nd parameter) will return a string without "*" if there is no files in searching dir?

[Hein van den Heuvel · Accepted solution]

1) when only 3 parameters are used, then the flags values is interpreted as 0. No flags set. As one of the flags is a negative, you get a double-negative: wildcards are valid.

2) LIB$FIND_FILE needs VM every time it is called with a 'fresh' context. It releases that VMS when LIB$FIND_FILE_END is called. It should be irrelevant to the program how output is set in the case of failure, unless documented. It is not documented so must be assumed to be 'random' and unreliable.
If the status is bad, don't look at the result.

VM worries in the context (sic) of LIB$FIND_FILE typically means that the application failed to call LIB$FIND_FILE_END correctly.

hth,
Hein.