stat.t portability, the LAST VMS exception!

[perl5.git] / vms / perlvms.pod

diff --git a/vms/perlvms.pod b/vms/perlvms.pod
index 080c03d..35776a4 100644 (file)
--- a/vms/perlvms.pod
+++ b/vms/perlvms.pod
@@ -194,7 +194,7 @@ so we can try to work around them.
 =head2 Wildcard expansion
 
 File specifications containing wildcards are allowed both on 
-the command line and within Perl globs (e.g. <CE<lt>*.cE<gt>>).  If
+the command line and within Perl globs (e.g. C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>).  If
 the wildcard filespec uses VMS syntax, the resultant 
 filespecs will follow VMS syntax; if a Unix-style filespec is 
 passed in, Unix-style filespecs will be returned.
@@ -244,11 +244,29 @@ directory specifications may use either VMS or Unix syntax.
 Perl for VMS supports redirection of input and output on the 
 command line, using a subset of Bourne shell syntax:
 
-    <F<file> reads stdin from F<file>,
-    >F<file> writes stdout to F<file>,
-    >>F<file> appends stdout to F<file>,
-    2>F<file> writes stderr to F<file>, and
-    2>>F<file> appends stderr to F<file>. 
+=over
+
+=item *
+
+C<E<lt>file> reads stdin from C<file>,
+
+=item *
+
+C<E<gt>file> writes stdout to C<file>,
+
+=item *
+
+C<E<gt>E<gt>file> appends stdout to C<file>,
+
+=item *
+
+C<2E<gt>file> writes stderr to C<file>, and
+
+=item *
+
+C<2E<gt>E<gt>file> appends stderr to C<file>. 
+
+=back
 
 In addition, output may be piped to a subprocess, using the  
 character '|'.  Anything after this character on the command 
@@ -326,18 +344,23 @@ The following functions were not implemented in the VMS port,
 and calling them produces a fatal error (usually) or 
 undefined behavior (rarely, we hope):
 
-    chroot, dbmclose, dbmopen, fcntl, flock,
+    chroot, dbmclose, dbmopen, flock,
     getpgrp, getppid, getpriority, getgrent, getgrgid,
     getgrnam, setgrent, endgrent, ioctl, link, lstat,
     msgctl, msgget, msgsend, msgrcv, readlink, semctl,
     semget, semop, setpgrp, setpriority, shmctl, shmget,
     shmread, shmwrite, socketpair, symlink, syscall
 
-The following functions are available on Perls compiled with Dec C 5.2 or
-greater and running VMS 7.0 or greater
+The following functions are available on Perls compiled with Dec C
+5.2 or greater and running VMS 7.0 or greater:
 
     truncate
 
+The following functions are available on Perls built on VMS 7.2 or
+greater:
+
+    fcntl (without locking)
+
 The following functions may or may not be implemented, 
 depending on what type of socket support you've built into 
 your copy of Perl:
@@ -604,7 +627,7 @@ or backticks.
 C<unlink> will delete the highest version of a file only; in
 order to delete all versions, you need to say
 
-    1 while (unlink LIST);
+    1 while unlink LIST;
 
 You may need to make this change to scripts written for a
 Unix system which expect that after a call to C<unlink>,
@@ -647,14 +670,19 @@ time of the file (VMS revision date).
 
 If PID is a subprocess started by a piped C<open()> (see L<open>), 
 C<waitpid> will wait for that subprocess, and return its final
-status value.  If PID is a subprocess created in some other way
-(e.g. SPAWNed before Perl was invoked), or is not a subprocess of
-the current process, C<waitpid> will check once per second whether
-the process has completed, and when it has, will return 0.  (If PID
-specifies a process that isn't a subprocess of the current process,
-and you invoked Perl with the C<-w> switch, a warning will be issued.)
-
-The FLAGS argument is ignored in all cases.
+status value in C<$?>.  If PID is a subprocess created in some other
+way (e.g. SPAWNed before Perl was invoked), or is not a subprocess
+of the current process, C<waitpid> will attempt to read from the
+process's termination mailbox, making the final status available in
+C<$?> when the process completes.   If the process specified by PID
+has no termination  mailbox, C<waitpid> will simply check once per
+second whether the process has completed, and return when it has. 
+(If PID specifies a process that isn't a subprocess of the current
+process, and you invoked Perl with the C<-w> switch, a warning will
+be issued.)
+
+Returns PID on success, -1 on error.  The FLAGS argument is ignored
+in all cases.
 
 =back
 
@@ -883,7 +911,7 @@ problems.
 
 =head1 Revision date
 
-This document was last updated on 7-Aug-2001, for Perl 5, 
+This document was last updated on 2-Oct-2001, for Perl 5, 
 patchlevel 8.
 
 =head1 AUTHOR