Re: Variable record format
However - as VMS had the record management - almost any program could read almost any file - the record attributes were stored in the file header and an open() call without optional parameters used the attributes in the file header to read the file correctly. (None of the mess that is in Windows where some text files open correctly in Notepad - others need Wordpad.) From (very old) memory - ordinary variable length record text files needed no optional parameters - fixed length record files needed 2 parameters (type = fixed length and the length of each record) - it could however get messy if you were creating indexed files (but a sequential read of an indexed file could be performed by almost any program).
The really bad case was reading a foreign (not created by VMS) binary file where everything had to be specified as the OS did not have valid data in the file header.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
