[Info-vax] wrong file format

[Dirk Munk]

Chris Townley wrote:
> On 01/01/2021 16:55, Dirk Munk wrote:
>> Dave Froble wrote:
>>> On 1/1/2021 10:46 AM, Dirk Munk wrote:
>>>
>>>> Yes indeed. And all those files created by those Cobol programs can 
>>>> only
>>>> be used by other Cobol programs created by that compiler.
>>>
>>> I've got to challenge this statement.  The files are just data, and 
>>> many compilers can produce code that could use the data.  Might 
>>> require some special coding, but, it's possible.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> No, the files do not just contain data. They contain indexes, pointers 
>> etc., and you have to be able to use them.
> 
> I managed it. We had a VMS application written (externally) in COBOL 
> with massive data files. Every month I exported to non-packed files, and 
> stripped out the data I needed for reporting using DCL
> 
> Worked for me!
> 
> Chris

Yes, of course that works on VMS ! You prove my point.

But it does not work like this on Unix. My remark was about Cobol files 
on Unix.