Functions and CALL Routines under OpenVMS |
Spawns a subprocess and executes a DCL command.
Category: |
General-Purpose OpenVMS
|
OpenVMS specifics: |
All aspects are host-specific
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DCL-command
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is the DCL command that is passed to the
subprocess. It can be a character variable, a character literal enclosed in
double quotation marks, or another character expression.
The VMS function spawns a subprocess and
executes the command that is passed to it. Any output that is produced is
sent to SYS$OUTPUT. If you are using
the SAS windowing environment, the results appear in a new window. To close
the new window, select the File menu and then select Exit
. This is consistent with
the behavior of the X statement and the X command.
If the VMS function executes successfully, the return
value is 0. Otherwise, the return value is an OpenVMS error
code that indicates why the function failed. If you supply an invalid command,
you will receive a return error code such as the following:
229520
|
%CLI-W-IVVERB, unrecognized command
verb - check validity and spelling. |
The VMS function is similar to the X statement,
the X command, the %SYSEXEC macro,
and the CALL SYSTEM routine. In most cases, the X statement, the X command,
or the %SYSEXEC macro are preferable
because they require less overhead. However, the VMS function is useful for
conditional processing because it returns a return code. The CALL SYSTEM routine
can be useful in certain situations because it is executable, and because
it accepts expressions as
arguments.
Copyright © 2009 by SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA. All rights reserved.