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 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 core are generally more serious, and are not
             suppressed.

       See "Perl Modules" in perlmod.