Changing file format!

[The Brit]

If I have a sequential text file with attributes

File organization: Sequential
Shelved state: Online
Caching attribute: Writethrough
File attributes: Allocation: 73, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, Version limit: 2, Contiguous best try
Record format: Stream, maximum 0 bytes, longest 0 bytes
Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control

and I want it convert it to

File organization: Sequential
Shelved state: Online
Caching attribute: Writethrough
File attributes: Allocation: 73, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, Version limit: 2
Record format: Variable length, maximum 0 bytes, longest 259 bytes
Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control

i.e. from STREAM to VARIABLE,

What would be the appropriate DCL command??

thanks

Dave.

[Jan van den Ende]

Dave,

traditionally,
make an FDL specifying the desired attributes, and
$ convert infile outfile/fdl=fdlfile

Starting at some 7.3-2 patch you can specify the attributes directly on the commandline, but I do not know (and can not at the moment get) the exact incantation.
Probably Hein will jump in for that...

hth

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

[The Brit]

Hi Jan,
Yes, I also believe there is a magic incantation which will do this. I think is is something like

$ Set file /attrib=RFM:VAR

unfortunately when I tried this (on a copy) it made some strange change. i.e. when I "typed" the file, it displayed nothing, although the file-size said it was not zero-length, and the EDT editor was able to load the file into its buffer, but with record length errors.

I too wait for Hein.

(probably having a late breakfast)

thanks

Dave.

[Jim_McKinney · Accepted solution]

$ convert/fdl=sys$input infile outfile
record
carriage_control carriage_return
format variable
^Z

[Hein van den Heuvel]

$Convert/FDL=NL: anything variable-length-record-file.dat

Hein

[Jim_McKinney]

> $Convert/FDL=NL: anything variable-length-record-file.dat


Slick!

[Jan van den Ende]

Aaaaai

Dave,

>>>
$Convert/FDL=NL: anything variable-length-record-file.dat
<<<

Please, reopen, and give Hein 10 points!

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

[John Gillings]

Dave,

>$ Set file /attrib=RFM:VAR

This hacks the RMS attributes switching RFM from STM to VAR. However, it does NOT change the metadata in the file. So the 2 byte record length fields at the beginning of each record, required by VAR format are not present, and the trailing CR-LF record delimiters of STM format are still present. The resulting file is unlikely to make much sense.

The requested change requires a CONVERT which will change each record to the correct format.

Hein's /FDL=NL: relies on the RMS default being VAR. A very neat trick for this specific question, but not for the general case of CONVERTing between formats.

"you can specify the attributes directly on
the commandline"

The /FDL qualifier now accepts either a file specification, or an FDL control string in double quotes. So, anything you did as /FDL=SYS$INPUT can now be in the command line. Just add a semicolon to the end of each line in your input stream and quote the whole string. Thus:

$ CONVERT/FDL="record;carriage_control carriage_return;format variable" infile outfile

RMS engineering accepted this change because it allowed CONVERT to be used in an inline PIPE sequence.

[The Brit]

As suggested, Hein deserved points for his solution. I also gave 10 to John for the additial explanation.

thanks guys

Dave.