Glossary H

handle

A value (often, but not always, a 32-bit integer) that identifies some operating system resource, for example, a window or a process. The handle value is returned from an operating system call when the resource is created; your program then passes that value as an argument to subsequent operating system routines to identify which resource is being accessed.

Your program should consider the handle value a "private" type and not try to interpret it as having any specific meaning (for example, an address).

hexadecimal constant

A constant that is a string of hexadecimal (base 16) digits (range 0 to 9, or an uppercase or lowercase letter in the range A to F) enclosed by apostrophes or quotation marks and preceded by the letter Z.

High Performance Fortran

An extended version of Fortran 90 with features supporting parallel processing. Compaq Fortran supports full High Performance Fortran (HPF), and compiles HPF programs for parallel execution.

Hollerith constant

A constant that is a string of printable ASCII characters preceded by nH, where n is the number of characters in the string (including blanks and tabs).

host

Either the main program or subprogram that contains an internal procedure, or the module that contains a module procedure. The data environment of the host is available to the (internal or module) procedure.

host association

The process by which a module procedure, internal procedure, or derived-type definition accesses the entities of its host.