Records; VMS vs. UNIX file system

[Erland Sommarskog]

Chris Torek (chris at mimsy.UUCP) writes:
>The classic example is RMS `print file
>format'.  It sounds reasonable enough:  A print file is intended to be
>printed, and the program to print files can make sure that the file is
>a print file.  Alas, when it comes time to make a quick tweak, one
>discovers that the editor (EDT) cannot edit print files.  
>...
>Someone should
>have told that to the author of RUNOFF:  Its output should be a *text*
>file.)

I just tried RUNOFF. If we forget these CR-LF at the end of each line, 
it gave a perfectly normal text file. I guess they have modified RUNOFF
since Chris played with VMS.
  But there are other facilities that use weird formats. The report 
generator in VAX-Cobol produces VFC files (I think it is.) The editor
(TPU these days, *not* EDT) doesn't mind it, but I haven't tried to
write the file back to disk, which I suspect would result in a "file is
converted to a supported format".
-- 
Erland Sommarskog            
ENEA Data, Stockholm         
sommar at enea.UUCP