Rexx Programmer's Reference

Appendix D. Regina Extended Functions

This appendix provides a reference to all functions Regina Rexx provides beyond the ANSI-1996 and TRL-2 standards. This appendix as intended as a quick reference guide for developers, so please see the Regina documentation if more detailed information is required. The Regina documentation is easily downloaded with the product itself, as described in Chapter 20.

Each of the following entries is identified by the name of the function. Entries contain a template of the function, showing its arguments, if any. Optional arguments are enclosed in brackets ([ ]). The vertical "or" bar (|) means to choose exactly one option from among the choices listed. The template is followed by a description of the function and its use, the function's arguments, and possible return codes. Coding examples show how to code each function.

To make some of the extended functions available, you must issue the options instruction with appropriate operands. Here are a few key examples.

To enable the VM buffer functions buftype, desbuf, dropbuf, and makebuf, encode:

options buffers

To enable the Amiga Rexx (AREXX) functions, encode this instruction. Note that bifs is a popular acronym that stands for built-in functions:

options  arexx_bifs

If you want the open, close, and eof functions to use AREXX semantics instead of standard Regina semantics encode:

options  arexx_semantics

B2C

B2C(binstring)

Converts a binary string of 0s and 1s into its corresponding character representation.

Example ...