[Info-vax] OpenVMS on X86-64, whats next

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 7/20/2022 7:32 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2022-07-20 07:59, Greg Tinkler wrote:
>> I had previously posted about not using SSIO, rather fixing CRTL.  I 
>> then wrote from sample 32bit code as a proof of concept.  This code 
>> has now been altered use RAB64, i.e. cc/point=64.  Well that was a 
>> whole heap of fun, and underlined for me as to the importance of 
>> OpenVMS becoming a PROPER 64 bit OS.  It also made be realize that 
>> call RMS a record manage system is incorrect, it has 3 parts (read the 
>> doco) file handling, record management, RAW IO.  A much better name to 
>> avoid confusing the lx/Ux group is VMSIO.
> 
> Admittedly, my RSX knowledge is going to shine through here again. But 
> actual file handling is, I believe, part of the Files-11 ACP (and XQP). 
> Not RMS. Now, I don't know if you can do things totally dodging RMS 
> under VMS. But in RSX, you certainly can. The QIO interface to deal with 
> files is rather different than what RMS gives you, but this is where 
> actual file processing takes place. RMS depends on that layer, and are 
> just operating on files as such. The actual handling of the file is done 
> outside of the file (things like managing protection, access, allocating 
> blocks to files, or free them, and so on...).

You can open, read, write and close files using SYS$QIOW.

It is block based and you need to both handle the record
format in application code and for write remember to extend
the filed when needed.

It is work but not that bad.

What is really bad is to get from file name to FID. Which I
think even in this case it is common to use RMS to get the FID
and then use SYS$QIOW from there.

Arne