# 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.
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.

Parent topic: Glossary