This routine annuls a pointer to an Object so that it is no longer recognised as a valid pointer by the AST library. Any resources associated with the pointer are released and made available for re-use.

This routine also decrements the Object’ s RefCount attribute by one. If this attribute reaches zero (which happens when the last pointer to the Object is annulled), then the Object is deleted.

CALL AST_ANNUL( THIS, STATUS )

THIS = INTEGER (Given and Returned)

STATUS = INTEGER (Given and Returned)

Object

• This routine attempts to execute even if STATUS is set to an error value on entry, although no further error report will be made if it subsequently fails under these circumstances. In particular, it will fail if the pointer suppled is not valid, but this will only be reported if the error status is clear on entry.