[Info-vax] Cross platform copying strategies

[Jouk Jansen]

JF Mezei wrote:
> Say I have a directory structure which has both text (variable length
> records), and various formats of binary images/movies/sounds. (fixed
> length, stmlf etc).
> 
> 
> From within VMS,  COPY and BACKUP to the remote NFS server don't seem to
> convert the variable length files to unix text files.
> 
> I have the MOUNT of the DNFS devides as /SERVER=UNIX and "/STRUCTURE=5".
> I was under the impression that VMS would be smart enough to convert
> text files back to unix text files when sending a text file over to a
> unis system.
> 

VMS copies the contents "as-is" to the NFS share but adds a file 
.$ADF<filename>;<version> which contains all the VMS file structure. If 
you read the file on the NFS share with your VMS machine the file header 
seems "unchanged" with the correct file-header. However this file may be 
"unuseable" on the UNIX server because it does not recognise the file 
header file.


               Jouk