Important Notice
The pages on this site contain documentation for very old MS-DOS software,
purely for historical purposes.
If you're looking for up-to-date documentation, particularly for programming,
you should not rely on the information found here, as it will be woefully
out of date.
Using COMMON with CHAIN
◄Contents► ◄Index► ◄Back►
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Using COMMON with CHAIN
■ The COMMON statement provides the only way to pass variable values
directly to a chained program.
■ To pass variables, both programs must contain COMMON statements. Note:
Variable order and type are significant, not variable names.
■ The order and type of variables must be the same for all COMMON statements
communicating between chaining programs.
■ Although the order and type of variables is critical for ensuring that
the right values are passed, COMMON blocks do not have to be the same
size.
■ If the COMMON block in the chained-to program is smaller than the COMMON
block in the chaining program, the extra COMMON variables in the chaining
program are discarded.
■ If the size of the COMMON block in the chained-to program is larger than
the COMMON block in the chaining program, then:
• Additional COMMON numeric variables are initialized to zero
• Additional string variables are initialized to null strings
■ Static arrays passed in a COMMON block by the chaining program must be
declared as static in the chained-to program. Similarly, dynamic arrays
placed in COMMON by the chaining program must be dynamic in the chained-
to program.
See: ◄COMMON Statement► ◄Scope Rules►