vmsish(3perl)

💖 vmsish — the Perl pragma that controls VMS-specific language features 💖

okay so bestie, this is from the Perl Programmers Reference Guide, and it's literally a pragma for controlling the VMS-flavored language features. if you're on VMS, this is your moment. if you're not... it's giving nothing, and I mean that affectionately (more on that in a sec). ✨

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

use vmsish;

use vmsish 'status';        # or '$?'
use vmsish 'exit';
use vmsish 'time';

use vmsish 'hushed';
no vmsish 'hushed';
vmsish::hushed($hush);

use vmsish;
no vmsish 'time';

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So, if you don't hand it an import list at all? It assumes every single VMS-specific feature, no cap. And rn there are four VMS-specific features on the menu: 'status' (a.k.a. '$?'), 'exit', 'time', and 'hushed'.

Not running VMS? This module does absolutely nothing. Zero. It's a vibe check it doesn't even show up for. 🙈

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👑 vmsish status

This one makes $? and system return the native VMS exit status instead of doing that whole emulated POSIX exit status thing. native > cosplay, fr fr.

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💅 vmsish exit

This makes exit 1 produce a successful exit (with status SS$_NORMAL), instead of emulating UNIX exit(), which is out here considering exit 1 to mean "an error happened". rude of it honestly.

Same energy as the CRTL's exit() function: exit 0 also gets mapped to an exit status of SS$_NORMAL, and literally any other argument to exit() just gets used directly as Perl's exit status. iconic behavior.

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⭐ vmsish time

This makes all times relative to the local time zone, instead of defaulting to Universal Time (a.k.a. Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT). your timezone, your rules. periodt. 🕰️

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🎀 vmsish hushed

Okay this is the main character of the page, so let's get into it.

This suppresses printing of VMS status messages to SYS$OUTPUT and SYS$ERROR if Perl terminates with an error status, and it lets programs that are expecting "unix-style" Perl avoid having to parse VMS error messages. Not me saving you from regexing your own error output 🫶

Important though: it does not suppress any messages from Perl itself — just the messages generated by DCL after Perl exits. And the DCL symbol $STATUS still has the termination status, but with a high-order bit set:

EXAMPLE:

    $ perl -e"exit 44;"                          Non-hushed error
exit
    %SYSTEM-F-ABORT, abort                       DCL message
    $ show sym $STATUS
      $STATUS == "%X0000002C"

    $ perl -e"use vmsish qw(hushed); exit 44;"   Hushed error exit
    $ show sym $STATUS
      $STATUS == "%X1000002C"

See that %X0000002C vs %X1000002C? That high-order bit is the whole plot twist. 💀

The 'hushed' flag has global scope during compilation: the exit() or die() commands that get compiled after 'vmsish hushed' will be hushed when they're executed. And doing a no vmsish 'hushed' turns off the hushed flag.

The status of the hushed flag also affects output of VMS error messages from compilation errors. But again — you still get the Perl error message (and the code in $STATUS).

EXAMPLE:

use vmsish 'hushed';    # turn on hushed flag
use Carp;          # Carp compiled hushed
exit 44;           # will be hushed
croak('I die');    # will be hushed
no vmsish 'hushed';     # turn off hushed flag
exit 44;           # will not be hushed
croak('I die2'):   # WILL be hushed, croak was compiled hushed

Look at that last line — compiled-hushed croak stays hushed even after you turn the flag off. the audacity. the commitment. 🔥

You can also control the 'hushed' flag at run-time, using the built-in routine vmsish::hushed(). With no argument, it returns the hushed status. And since vmsish::hushed is built-in, you do not need to use vmsish to call it. convenient much? ✨

EXAMPLE:

if ($quiet_exit) {
    vmsish::hushed(1);
}
print "Sssshhhh...I'm hushed...\n" if vmsish::hushed();
exit 44;

BIG caveat, do not skip this one: an exit() or die() that was compiled 'hushed' because of use vmsish is not un-hushed by calling vmsish::hushed(0) at runtime. compiled is compiled, bestie. it said what it said. 😭

And one more: the messages from error exits from inside the Perl core are generally more serious, and they are not suppressed. those ones are showing up no matter what. sorry. 💀

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See "Perl Modules" in perlmod for more.

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okay that's the whole page, mwah 💜 This was pulled from perl v5.44.0, dated 2026-10-17 — so go forth, get hushed, and remember: $STATUS always knows what you did. 🎀✨🦋