On Tuesday 03 December 2002 3:01 pm, Walter Murray wrote:
>  "Peter Smithson" wrote:
> > I'm told that you can not delete from "standard" record files yet I
> > have some documentation (quoted) which says you can.  I find this
> > confusing!
>
> Peter,
>
> It would help if you could provide a little more information about the
> document you are quoting.  Reading the quoted material in context might
> help us understand and explain the apparent contradiction.

Walter: I may be partly to blame for that conclusion, but that is because my
response was based on a "nit" -- his original question (and this followup)
talks about "standard" files, but his question on FDELETE actually applies to
RIO, or Relative I/O, files -- RIO != standard, hence the confusion.

[I've been meaning to point out this "nit" for a couple of days, but didn't
want to be accused of being overly nit-picky ;) ]  Seriously, though, I'm of
the persuasion that, put simply, a "standard" file is one in which most, if
not all, of the bits in the FOPTIONS/AOPTIONS word are zeros (the bits that
control read vs. write/append; temp vs. perm; and so on don't count) -- HP's
documentation, however, actually does have a definition for a "standard"
file.  See  http://docs.hp.com/cgi-bin/doc3k/B3265090821.13550/65

  2:3     File type option
            Indicates internal record structure used to access
            records in a file.  If the file is old, this option is
            ignored.  Specifying a designator option (foption bits
            (10:3)) value other than zero overrides this option.
            This option is applicable only at file creation.

                   The following bit settings are valid:
                        000  Standard (STD) file
                        001  KSAM/3000 file
                        010  Relative I/O (RIO) file
                        011  KSAM XL file
                        100  Circular (CIR) file
                        101  NM spoolfile
                        110  Message (MSG) file
                     Default:  000

My definition would extend to things like fixed vs. variable/undefined; (or
even byte-stream) and ascii vs. binary, but I wouldn't quibble much over
someone claiming that a undefined--record-length binary file is "standard".

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