RE: [open-cobol-list] variable record size sequential files

[William M. Klein]

The "RDW" (record descriptor word - aka "llzz" field) from IBM mainframes is
described (among other places) at:

 
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/dgt2d410/3.1.3.1.
2 

Micro Focus (for example) has an "RDW" compiler directive to "use" this
(virtually - as they do NOT store their variable length records this way).

With the '85 Standard the "correct" way to get (or set) length information
is by using the 

   RECORD VAYING IN SIZE
clause of the FD - rather than the
   RECORD CONTAINS 
clause.

It should be noted that "relying" on this information isn't even possible on
IBM - since they allowed QSAM "buffers" above the 16M line.  On the other
hand, older (pre '85 Standard) programs did "negative subscript" to get at
the field.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: address@hidden 
> [mailto:address@hidden On 
> Behalf Of Keisuke Nishida
> Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 12:44 PM
> To: David Korn
> Cc: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: [open-cobol-list] variable record size sequential files
> 
> At Mon, 24 May 2004 21:54:52 -0400 (EDT),
> David Korn wrote:
> > 
> > I beleive that the four byte size field in front of each
> > record that is read or written should be a big endian
> > followed by to 0 bytes.
> > 
> > It appears to be little endian on Linux.  Is this intentional?
> > It this an option?
> 
> I don't know what other compilers do about this.  At least,
> the exact file format is not part of the standard.
> 
> It would be a good idea if we had an option for compatibility.
> Could you send me a patch or a pointer to the reference?
> 
> Keisuke
> 
> 
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