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The intended audience for this document is software developers who are involved in porting a VICAR application or in writing a new portable application. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with programming in the current VMS-only VICAR system.
This document discusses in detail the changes in the VICAR Run-Time Library (abbreviated RTL in the rest of the document) that have been made in order to make it portable. This document is not a complete reference for the RTL. It is a supplement to the VICAR Run-Time Library Reference Manual. Where the two documents conflict, this guide takes precedence. Features of the RTL that are not described in this guide are the same as documented in the Reference Manual.
This document is broken up into several major parts. The first section describes some of the problems involved in writing portable VICAR code. The next two sections describe the changes in the RTL. The next six sections describe writing portable C, Fortran, and TCL code in the VICAR context. The next three sections describe putting all the pieces together to make a deliverable VICAR program or subroutine, the directory structure, and examples. The final two sections contain summaries of the major portability rules and all RTL calling sequences.
If you as a programmer doing a port come across any portability issues that aren't discussed here, or any problems with what is discussed, please bring it to the attention of the VICAR system programmer (the author of this guide) immediately. It will be incorporated into the next release of this document.