TAL Programmer's Guide

TAL and C Guidelines
Mixed-Language Programming
096254 Tandem Computers Incorporated 17–9
TAL and C Guidelines This subsection provides guidelines for writing programs composed of TAL and
Tandem C modules. This discussion assumes that you have a working knowledge of
TAL and C and are familiar with the contents of the following manuals:
TAL Programmer’s Guide
TAL Reference Manual
C Reference Manual
This subsection discusses:
TAL and C identifiers
TAL and C data types
Memory models
TAL calling C
C calling TAL
Sharing data
Parameters and variables
Extended data segments
For information on calling TAL routines from another language, see the manual for
COBOL85, FORTRAN, or Pascal.
Using Identifiers TAL and C identifiers differ as follows:
TAL and C have independent sets of reserved keywords.
TAL identifiers can include circumflexes (^); C identifiers cannot.
The C compiler is case-sensitive; the TAL compiler is not case-sensitive.
To declare variable identifiers that satisfy both compilers:
Avoid using reserved keywords in either language as identifiers.
Specify TAL identifiers without circumflexes.
Specify C identifiers in uppercase.
You can declare TAL-only or C-only routine identifiers and satisfy both compilers by
using the public name option in:
Interface declarations in C
EXTERNAL procedure declarations in TAL
In Inspect sessions:
Use uppercase for TAL identifiers
Use the given case for C identifiers
In Binder sessions, use mode noupshift for lowercase C identifiers.