gtpa2m44Application Programming

Required Customizations

You need to customize the TPF system to be able to take full advantage of C language support. This section includes a description of required and optional customizations.

TPF Globals

TPF globals are a unique phenomenon.

Most operating systems provide a means for application programs to access and modify variables in common storage. The structure of the TPF global areas, and the fact that they are not link-edited with the application load module, ensure that TPF application programs that manipulate the global areas will never be fully portable to other operating systems. However, there is a way for TPF application programs written in C to access the global areas.

This section describes the special concerns that arise when creating a C language interface to TPF globals, and the customization that you need to do before you can create application programs written in C that access TPF global fields and records. See the earlier section on globals for architecture and terminology.

For details on these functions see their individual sections in the TPF C/C++ Language Support User's Guide.