Gavin writes:

> FCOPY's job is to copy *records* from one place to another.  :COPY's job is
>  to copy *files* from one place to another, in their entirety.  By
specifying
>  ;ACC=APPEND, you're asking :COPY to deal with the contents of the file
>  rather than the file itself.
>
>  Because :COPY only operates on whole files it can be coded much more
>  efficiently than a program like :FCOPY which has to be prepared to do
things
>  the way *you* want it to rather than the way it wants to.

So you think FCOPY ought to really be called RCOPY then? :-).

Wirt Atmar

PS: Actually, that's a very good explanation that Gavin put forward. FCOPY is
a program I teach someone how to use almost every week.

FCOPY is the only gold standard on the HP3000 by which you can examine a
file, byte-by-byte, and be sure that the program is telling you the truth.
For that reason alone, FCOPY is an extraordinarily valuable tool.

Just yesterday, I mentioned to someone that they could convert only the text
portions of their EBCDIC files to ASCII, leaving the packed fields alone, and
then convert the entire new file to KSAM for high-speed retrievals. This
capability makes learning and knowing FCOPY a truly substantial benefit for
almost anyone.

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