[Info-vax] VSI roadmap

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2023-08-24 16:05, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 8/24/2023 5:57 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> On 2023-08-23 14:28, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> On 2023-08-22, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>> On 8/21/2023 8:10 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>> On 2023-08-18, Dave Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Just not anywhere as nice with RMS and "external to the database" 
>>>>>> record
>>>>>> definitions.
>>>>>
>>>>> RMS was clearly designed by people who thought punched cards were 
>>>>> cool...
>>>>
>>>> Not sure what aspect of RMS that make you say that.
>>>>
>>>
>>> That the record is a series of opaque bytes, instead of structured
>>> fields with the knowledge about the fields built into RMS itself.
>>
>> I don't even understand what you said here.
>> There is *some* information about fields in RMS, but it's partial.
>> If you want to talk about opaque stream of bytes, I would say "aha - 
>> you are
>> talking about Unix view of a file".
>>
>>   Johnny
>>
> 
> RMS keys are defined as locations in a data record.  Not sure I'd define 
> that as "information about fields".  As far as I know, RMS (other than 
> key definitions) knows nothing about data fields/columns/whatever.

RMS keys have a type (obviously). You can also have some meta-data, even 
though I suspect it's mostly not used...

.dsp [1,7]mailqUEUE.DAT/fu

DU:[1,7]MAILQUEUE.DAT;17                         RMS Prologue Version=2
                         Size:    2604./2604.     Created: 5-OCT-2019 01:13
                         Owner:   [001,054]       Revised: 24-AUG-2023 
19:19 (337
77)
                         File ID: (67530,64,0)    Expires: <none_specified>
   File protection:      System:RWE, Owner:RWE, Group:, World:
   File organization:    Indexed, using 3 key(s) with 1 area(s)
   File attributes:      Allocation=2604, Extend=100, Bucket size=4
   Record format:        Fixed length 1104 byte records
   Record attributes:    None


   Area number 0:
         Bucket size=4
         Allocation remaining=24, Extend=0

   Primary key:
         Name=Host, Minimum record length=255
         Key information:
                 Type=String, Length=255, Duplicates, No changes
                 Position(s) and size(s):
                         Segment=0, position=0, length=255
         Area information:
                 Index:  Area number=0
                         Lowest level area=0
                         Bucket size=4, Fill factor=2048
                 Data:   Area number=0
                         Bucket size=4, Fill factor=2048
         Allocation information:
                 Root virtual block number=209, Root level=2
                 First data bucket virtual block number=9

   Alternate key number 1:
         Name=Entry No, Minimum record length=262
         Key information:
                 Type=Binary, Length=4, No duplicates, No changes
                 Position(s) and size(s):
                         Segment=0, position=258, length=4
         Area information:
                 Index:  Area number=0
                         Lowest level area=0
                         Bucket size=4, Fill factor=2048
                 Data:   Area number=0
                         Bucket size=4, Fill factor=2048
         Allocation information:
                 Root virtual block number=13, Root level=1
                 First data bucket virtual block number=17

   Alternate key number 2:
         Name=Filename, Minimum record length=1074
         Key information:
                 Type=String, Length=38, Duplicates, No changes
                 Position(s) and size(s):
                         Segment=0, position=1036, length=38
         Area information:
                 Index:  Area number=0
                         Lowest level area=0
                         Bucket size=4, Fill factor=2048
                 Data:   Area number=0
                         Bucket size=4, Fill factor=2048
         Allocation information:
                 Root virtual block number=21, Root level=1
                 First data bucket virtual block number=25



Note both the name, and type information for each key. However, the name 
have no function as such within RMS. At least not under RSX. But you can 
put information there if you want to.

And key #1 in my case is an unsigned 32-bit integer.

   Johnny