> On Aug 3, 2018, at 5:48 AM, John Sommer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> All,
> 
> 
> Is the HP3000 capable of creating a true variable length file?
> 
> 
> I can tell it to create a Variable ASCII (VA) or Variable Binary (VB) file,
> but it still seems to allocate space for the max record length.
> 

Yes.

The blocksize it allocates is (IIRC) based on the record size times the block factor.

Oddly, you can sometimes get more records in a "block" than the block factor would imply.
For example:

   build foo; rec=-80,16,v,ascii

   :fcopy from=; to = foo
   (return)
    a
   b
   c
   d
   ...
   z
   1
   ...
   9

all 35 of those records will fit in the first block of the file.

Conversely, you can get a single record of about 1280 characters written to the file
(because the true max record size is the specified record size times the block factor).

However, the real question might be: why do you ask?

Stan
  
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