Important Notice

The pages on this site contain documentation for very old MS-DOS software, purely for historical purposes. If you're looking for up-to-date documentation, particularly for programming, you should not rely on the information found here, as it will be woefully out of date.

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 CHAIN filespec$
 
 Usage Notes
   ■ Programs running in the programming environment assume a .BAS extension
     if no extension is given and cannot chain to executable files (files
     with a .COM or .EXE extension).
 
   ■ Programs running outside the programming environment assume an .EXE
     extension and cannot chain to Basic (.BAS) source files.
 
   ■ You can pass variables between programs using the COMMON Statement to
     set up a blank COMMON block. See: ◄COMMON Statement►
 
   ■ When you compile a program outside the Visual Basic environment, the
     VBDRT10.LIB library does not support COMMON. To use COMMON with chained
     programs outside the environment, you must either:
     • Select the EXE Requiring Run-Time Module option from the Make EXE File
       dialog when you compile. This is the default option (uses the file
       VBDRT10.EXE).
     • Compile from the command line (BC.EXE) without the /O option.
 
   ■ When programs use VBDRT10.EXE, files are left open during chaining
     unless they are explicitly closed with the CLOSE statement.
     See: ◄CLOSE Statement►
 
   ■ CHAIN is similar to RUN; the main differences are that RUN closes all
     open files and does not support data blocks declared with COMMON.
     See: ◄RUN Statement►
 
   ■ CHAIN is equivalent to RUN when the /O compiler option is used.
 
   ■ If you compile a program (without /O) that does not use ISAM and then
     attempt to CHAIN to another non-/O program that does use ISAM, Visual
     Basic generates the error message, "Error loading run-time module
     (VBDRT10.EXE) - ISAM support removed." Likewise, if you compile a
     program (without /O) that does not use forms and then attempt to CHAIN
     to another non-/O program that does use forms, Visual Basic generates
     the error message, "Error loading run-time module (VBDRT10.EXE) - form
     support removed."