Standard Interfaces for Application Programs

This chapter describes the ``Standard Interfaces'' to the basic MIDAS data structures MIDAS data structures  which are needed in an application program in order to execute within the MIDAS environment.

The routines consist of a name of six characters (all capital letters), where the first two characters are either ST  for FORTRAN 77 or SC  for the C language. The next character indicates the data structure the function it accesses or the subsytem it operates on.
Currently these are:

• S for connecting to the MIDAS system  (environment);
• E for operating on the error  subsystem in MIDAS;
• K for accessing the keywords ;
• T for displaying text ;
• F for accessing bulk data frames ;
• D for accessing the descriptors ;
• C for manipulating catalogues ;
• I for accessing data frames and their standard descriptors;

The final three characters describe the functionality of the routine.

Below and in the same order we give a general description and explanation of the various interfaces. Refer to Appendix for the detailed calling sequence of each routine mentioned below. Appendix contains two parts: first, all C routines, grouped by functions, are listed and then follow all FORTRAN routines.