We hope these notes will save you from confusion and lost
sleep when writing Perl scripts on VMS. If you find we've
missed something you think should appear here, please don't
-hesitate to drop a line to vmsperl@newman.upenn.edu.
+hesitate to drop a line to vmsperl@perl.org.
=head1 Installation
the subprocess before calling C<exec>.
In general, the use of C<fork> and C<exec> to create
-subprocess is not recommended under VMS; wherever possible,
+subprocesses is not recommended under VMS; wherever possible,
use the C<system> operator or piped filehandles instead.
=item getpwent
generated by an exception. The next 8 bits are derived from
the severity portion of the subprocess' exit status: if the
severity was success or informational, these bits are all 0;
-otherwise, they contain the severity value shifted left one bit.
+if the severity was warning, they contain a value of 1; if the
+severity was error or fatal error, they contain the actual
+severity bits, which turns out to be a value of 2 for error
+and 4 for fatal error.
+
As a result, C<$?> will always be zero if the subprocess' exit
status indicated successful completion, and non-zero if a
-warning or error occurred.
+warning or error occurred. Conversely, when setting C<$?> in
+an END block, an attempt is made to convert the POSIX value
+into a native status intelligible to the operating system upon
+exiting Perl. What this boils down to is that setting C<$?>
+to zero results in the generic success value SS$_NORMAL, and
+setting C<$?> to a non-zero value results in the generic
+failure status SS$_ABORT. See also L<perlport/exit>.
The pragma C<use vmsish 'status'> makes C<$?> reflect the actual
-VMS exit status, instead of the default emulation of POSIX status
-described above.
+VMS exit status instead of the default emulation of POSIX status
+described above. This pragma also disables the conversion of
+non-zero values to SS$_ABORT when setting C<$?> in an END
+block (but zero will still be converted to SS$_NORMAL).
=item $|
=head1 Revision date
-This document was last updated on 26-Feb-2000, for Perl 5,
-patchlevel 6.
+This document was last updated on 7-Aug-2001, for Perl 5,
+patchlevel 8.
=head1 AUTHOR
Charles Bailey <bailey@cor.newman.upenn.edu>
+Craig Berry <craigberry@mac.com>
Dan Sugalski <dan@sidhe.org>