Record Structure

Record structures pro vide a de￿nition of storage format, record t ype, and size.

Storage Format

Devices on the 900 Series HP 3000 can transmit information in ASCII (American Standard Code for Information In terchange) and/or binary code, depending on the device. F or example, a line printer handles ASCII formatted data, while a disc can transmit and store data in either format. You can use optional parameters in the HPFOPEN or FOPEN intrinsic to specify the code (ASCII or binary) in whic h a new ￿le is to be recorded when it is written to a device that supports both codes.

Examples of ASCII ￿les on the HP 3000 include program source ￿les, general text and document ￿les, and MPE/iX stream ￿les con taining MPE/iX commands. Examples of binary ￿les include program ￿les con taining link ed object code and application data ￿les. F or detailed information, refer to Accessing Files Pr ogrammer's Guide (32650-90017).

Record Types

A ￿le can contain records written in one of three formats, called record t ypes:

Fixed-length

Variable-length

Unde￿ned-length

Figure 6-12 sho ws how the content of each record type appears.

6-22 File System