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The bulk of the system is coded in ANSI-standard Fortran. The only
VAX extensions used are the SGP/16-sanctioned
INCLUDE, DO WHILE, DO ... END DO and names longer than
6 characters. Full ANSI-compliance would be achieved by including
the INCLUDEd text, recoding
all the DOs and stripping the prefix "HLP_" from
external names.
Specific machine dependencies are as follows. Filenames are given
in their uppercase VAX/VMS forms, but are always lowercase on
the Unix platforms.
- COMIC -- Two versions of this INCLUDE file are supplied.
COMIC.FOR is ANSI standard except that underscore, percent and
backslash appear in character strings. COMIC.SUN4 has a double
backslash to override the ``escape'' mechanism used by the Fortran
compilers found on most Unix platforms.
- FOPR -- Two versions are supplied. FOPR.VAX uses
the OPEN keyword READONLY to avoid requiring
write access to the help library; it is used on the VAX and
the DECstation. The PC version uses the OPEN option
MODE='READ' for the same
purpose. The machine-independent version FOPR.IND uses a
standard OPEN; this is the version used on the Sun.
- INSUB -- Three versions are supplied. The VAX version
INSUB.VAX uses
the format descriptor $ to suppress the newline after the
prompt, and begins each line with a blank to act as a printer
control code. The PC version INSUB.PCM is similar, but uses the
format descriptor
to suppress the newline.
INSUB.SUN4, which works on both the Sun and DECstation,
like the VAX version uses $, but does not output
a blank.
With the machine-independent version INSUB.IND, a newline (unavoidably)
follows the prompt.
- CREHLP -- Three versions are supplied. CREHLP.VAX is essentially
VAX-only, and works in conjunction with the HLIB.COM command procedure.
CREHLP.IND works on the PC and may work on other machines; however,
it uses explicit I/O unit numbers, which may need to be changed.
CREHLP.SUN4 works on the Sun and DECstations and may work on other Unix
platforms; however, it uses explicit I/O unit numbers and also the
filenames fort.1 and fort.2 (as required by the hlib
script).
- LSTHLP -- An explicit I/O unit number is used, which may need to
be changed on some machines.
- OUTSUB -- Two versions are supplied.
OUTSUB.IND, which is used on VAX and PC, outputs
a blank printer control code. OUTSUB.SUN4 doesn't, and is
used on the Sun and DECstation.
In all versions, an explicit I/O unit number is used,
which may need to be changed on some machines.
- TSTHLP -- An explicit I/O unit number is used, which may need to
be changed on some machines.
- UPCASE -- The algorithm depends on ASCII coding, in that
a--z is assumed to exist and be in the same collating order as A--Z.
- NAMETR -- The routine supplied, HLP_NAMETR, either leaves
the name unchanged or adds a prefix and suffix. Some
other behaviour may be more approriate or convenient.
The VAX, Sun SPARCstation and DECstation versions of the HLP system
are supported by the Starlink Project. Versions for other Unix
platforms will be produced if and when they are needed and will
also be Starlink-supported. The PC version is supported by the author.

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HLP --- Interactive Help System
Starlink User Note 124
P. T. Wallace
13th June 1995
E-mail:ptw@star.rl.ac.uk