SUN/124.10

Starlink Project
Starlink User Note 124.10

P. T. Wallace

13th June 1995

HLP — Interactive Help System

v3.3

User Guide


Abstract

The Starlink HLP system allows an application program to retrieve named items from a hierarchically-arranged library of text. The facility resembles VAX/VMS HELP. It consists of a library plus utility programs for creating, listing and reading help libraries.

Contents

1 INTRODUCTION
 1.1 Comparison with VMS Help
 1.2 Portability
 1.3 Package Contents
2 USING HELP
3 CREATING A HELP LIBRARY
 3.1 The Source File
 3.2 Creating the Library File
4 RETRIEVING HELP TEXT
 4.1 The HLP_HELP Subprogram
 4.2 The Output Subprogram
 4.3 The Input Subprogram
 4.4 The Name Translation Subprogram
 4.5 Terminal Handling
 4.6 Error Codes
 4.7 Linking
5 SOFTWARE SUPPORT GUIDE
 5.1 Release Contents
 5.2 Portability Issues
 5.3 Library Format
 5.4 The INCLUDE files
 5.5 Subprograms
  5.5.1 Supported interfaces
  5.5.2 Templates
  5.5.3 String handling
  5.5.4 Variable-length random-access file package
  5.5.5 Indexed-sequential package
  5.5.6 Internal
 5.6 Rebuilding the System
 5.7 VAX/VMS Logical Names
6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS