No subject

[utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!unix-wizards]

>From decvax!duke!unc!lynn at Berkeley Tue Oct 27 12:44:19 1981
VAX/VMS supports labelled tapes which are supposed to be according
to ANSI X3.27-1977.  The actual format is rather thoroughly described
in Appendix B of the VAX-11 Record Management Services Reference
Manual.  Text files are ANSI type D, which means that records are
variable length, blocked, and do not span block boundaries.  Records
are preceded by a four character count field containing the (decimal)
record length, including the count field, with explicit leading zeros.
Blocks are padded to fixed length with the "^" character.  Records are
not terminated, and VMS does not expect carriage returns, line feeds,
or nulls at the end of a record.  The count is all you have.

Since version 2.0 VMS expects to find three header records, but you
can tell it when you mount the tape that there is no HDR3 record.

I have (also) shell scripts (csh) and a program to read VMS tapes, but
don't presently have a program to write them.  It isn't hard, though;
I did it in half a day once back when VMS was new.  Then I moved  . . .
Anybody who wants what I have can get it, if they mail me a uucp address
(unc is not on ARPANET).
			duke!unc!lynn