The first prototype  of the pre-processor that will be  used to translate
the bulk  of the LISTSERV  code from VS PASCAL  to VAX PASCAL  is finally
ready  after  several  days  of  testing.  There  is  still  one  serious
incompatibility problem (the  lack of arithmetic AND and  OR operators in
VAX PASCAL) to address; it is an annoying problem in the sense that it is
not easy to write code that will  handle this in the general case, but on
the other hand  the problem can be  easily bypassed by spending  a day or
two modifying  the source code to  use a function call  instead. In other
words, this is not a serious obstacle.
 
With version 1.8a  there are 104 PASCAL  source files. 10 of  them are VM
specific or otherwise represent code which is not to be used in the first
non-VM  "stages" -  for instance  because  they interface  with the  file
server functions, which  will not be available until  the "Libris" stage.
Of the remaining 94, 92 compiled  without any error other than the AND/OR
problem  mentioned  above, and  2  will  need non-cosmetic  changes  (the
initialization routine, and a checksum  routine which had been written in
PASCAL as an exercise in type bending  :-) ). The code was tested on both
VAX  PASCAL and  DEC  PASCAL  (the AXP  version)  with  exactly the  same
results, as expected. I would like to run the same test on OSF/1 if I can
find a test site with the PASCAL compiler.
 
While  compilation is  of course  no assurance  of proper  execution, the
PASCAL compilers  involved are  enough of  a pain  in the  chairwarmer to
guarantee  a pretty  high probability  that  the code  they generated  is
actually what you thought they would  generate. At any rate, that part of
the development is no longer a question mark.
 
  Eric