Coding for the Shared Virtual Area
Note: The description and the example shown in Figure 1 are primarily intended for a 24-bit environment.
For the linkage conventions valid for a 31-bit environment, refer to Supported Addressing Modes, Data Spaces and Virtual Disks.
Besides accommodating the system directory list (SDL) and phases that are needed by the system, the shared virtual area (SVA) may contain user-written phases that can be used concurrently by more than one program. SVA phases must be re-enterable and relocatable; code that modifies itself will cause a protection check when executed from the SVA. This section presents some advice on coding phases to use SVA facilities and suggests some standards for base-register usage.
The basic assumptions for coding an SVA phase are:
- The re-enterable code must not modify any storage within its own storage area. Therefore, the code must not contain DTFs, CCBs, or other control blocks that are modified during execution.
- The phase can modify registers only if it saves and restores them for each user.
- A user-specified work area (within the calling partition) must be provided for storing registers and for any storage modifications.
Suggested register conventions:
- Use register 12 as the base register in both the main routine and the re-enterable code.
- Use register 13 as base for the working storage area. It is the responsibility of the main routine to provide addressability to the work area by loading register 13; the re-enterable routine must not modify register 13. The easiest way to address the working storage area in the re-enterable code is by a DSECT that defines the fields of the work area and a USING dsectname,13. In this way symbolic addressing can be used.
- Use CALL, SAVE, and RETURN macros. As register 13 is the base register, SAVE (14,12) and RETURN (14,12) result. Use register notation for CALL, for example, CALL (15) .... Before issuing the CALL, load register 15 with the transfer address. Register 14 will always contain the return address. The standard is thus established of register 15 for calling and register 14 for returning.
- Switches, and other areas that may be modified, can be placed in the working storage area using base register 13.
Figure 1 illustrates the suggested conventions: MAINRTN is the main routine, SUBRTN is the SVA phase.