VMS Help SCA, SCA Topics, Callable Routines, SCA$GET_ATTRI_VALUE_T, Description  *Conan The Librarian (sorry for the slow response - running on an old VAX)

    The SCA$GET_ATTRI_VALUE_T routine returns the value of any
    attribute as a character string.

    If the handle describes an attribute, then this routine returns
    the value of that attribute. In this case, the attribute_kind
    parameter must not be specified.

    If the handle describes an entity, then this routine returns the
    value of the first attribute of that entity that is of the kind
    specified by the attribute_kind  parameter. In this case, the
    attribute_kind parameter must be specified.

    If you want to get more than one attribute value of a particular
    kind for an entity, you must use the routine SCA$GET_ATTRIBUTE.
    This applies only to the attribute kinds SCA$K_ATTRI_NAME and
    SCA$K_ATTRI_ALL.

    The value of any kind of attribute can be returned by this
    routine, except for SCA$K_ATTRI_ALL. This routine will convert to
    character string those attributes whose data type is not character
    string.

    This routine does not accept the attribute-kind SCA$K_ATTRI_ALL as
    the value of the attribute_kind parameter. It is not meaningful to
    get just the first attribute without regard to attribute-kind.