[Info-vax] Portable OpenVMS binary data format?

[Steven Schweda]

> As far as I can tell, STREAM_LF appends a linefeed (0x0a)
> to each record, STREAM_CR appends a carriage return (0x0d),
> STREAM_CRLF appends a carriage return and a linefeed, and
> STREAM appends nothing at all. [,,,]

   Yeah, except that there is no "STREAM_CRLF.  HELP FORTRAN
Statements OPEN RECORDTYPE says:

         'STREAM'     Data is not grouped into records and
                      contains no control information.

But an actual experiment reveals otherwise:

 00 00 00 03 0A 0D 00 00 00 02 0A 0D 00 00 00 01 ................ 000000
 00 06 0A 0D 00 00 00 05 0A 0D 00 00 00 04 0A 0D ................ 000010
 0A 0D 00 00 00 01 0A 0D FF FF FF FF 0A 0D 00 00 ................ 000020
 00 00 00 04 0A 0D 00 00 00 03 0A 0D 00 00 00 02 ................ 000030
 00 00 0A 0D 00 00 00 06 0A 0D 00 00 00 05 0A 0D ................ 000040


The actual CR+LF record delimiter agrees with what FAB$C_STM
does, as opposed to, say, FAB$C_STMLF or FAB$C_STMCR.  Trust
no one, I always say.

> [...] since you're writing binary data, I don't believe
> there's any point in appending anything at all.

   All I can see is potential trouble from any line-ending
character(s) if the data are not lines of text.

> [...] if you use STREAM_LF or STREAM_CR or STREAM_CRLF,
> you're just going to confuse the next person who looks at
> your program.

   Forget the next _person_; worry about the next _program_. 
And there is no "STREAM_CRLF"l that's "STREAM".


> Keep it simple. Just use STREAM, [...]

   Half right.

   There was a reason for my suggestion of "recordtype =
'fixed'".