[Info-vax] 64-bit file sizes, was: Re: scp or sftp: file is "raw", needs to be parsed - possible to work around that?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2021-05-20, Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
>
> And now I'm pondering what the eventual advent of 64-bit file sizes 
> will do to existing apps and APIs...
>

That's a good question.

It's a pity that on VMS, when using the VMS APIs instead of the C ones,
you can't just use a 64-bit version of stat() with appropriate 64-bit
integer variables, compile your code, and then call it a day. :-(

I wonder if sizes will be locked at the current maximum size for the
older APIs (with the value varying depending on whether you are working
in blocks or bytes) with yet _another_ set of APIs to get and manipulate
the 64-bit file size.

It's also possible that when using higher-level languages such as C
with the C APIs they may just do what Linux does and just call
different versions in the glibc stat() call depending on whether you
are working with 32-bit or 64-bit variables.

That might not work however due to the fact that you can have both
32-bit and 64-bit pointers in the same image on VMS, unlike the either
32-bit or 64-bit pointers seen in Linux binaries.

Also, will there need to be another version of RMS indexed files to
handle the larger file sizes ?

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.