[Info-vax] wrong file format

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/1/2021 11:39 AM, 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.

Of course data can be read. And with the correct library then data
can be interpreted correctly.

But there is a difference between VMS and non-VMS.

In the VMS world it is:

Cobol program----Cobol RTL----|
Pascal program---Pascal RTL---|--RMS--RMS index sequential file format
Fortran program--Fortran RTL--|

In the non-VMS world it is:

Cobol vendor A program--Cobol vendor A RTL--vendor A ISAM file format
Cobol vendor B program--Cobol vendor B RTL--vendor B ISAM file format
Cobol vendor C program--Cobol vendor C RTL--vendor C ISAM file format

where A, B and C ISAM file formats are different.

Heck - GNU Cobol even comes in two flavors with two different ISAM file 
formats.

Arne