[Info-vax] wrong file format

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/1/2021 3:32 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 1/1/21 3:28 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> Yes, but they are well documented and use underlying systems (like
> Berkeley DB) that work just fine with other languages and applications.

True.

BDB may be a bit more well-documented than VBISAM. But on the
other hand VBISAM's LGPL may be a lot more attractive than
BDB's AGPL.

Arne