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From: seymour@milton.u.washington.edu (Richard Seymour)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: VAX/VMS Fortran: Record length in BYTES
Message-ID: <12949@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 13 Dec 90 21:11:21 GMT
References: <5125.2767b5c5@cc.curtin.edu.au>
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 25

In article <5125.2767b5c5@cc.curtin.edu.au> Gumley_LE@cc.curtin.edu.au (Liam Gumley) writes:
>Re: VAX/VMS Fortran
>
>I have to write a series of data buffers to a file, each of which is
>13730 bytes long.  Note that this is not a multiple of four.
...some background deleted...
>So I cannot use an 'unformatted' type file, as these must have record lengths
>which are multiples of longwords - 13730 won't work in VAX/VMS Fortran.
...slow example deleted...
>Why doesn't VAX/VMS Fortran let you specify the record lengths in BYTES?

it does -- simply specify FORM='FORMATTED'  in the OPEN, and the RECL=
 turns into bytes instead of longwords.
this is NOT ansi-standard, but it's been in VMS fortran since v3.5
(at least)
for output speed, i recommend:
   byte array(13730)
   open(...,access='direct',form='formatted',recl=13730,recordtype='fixed')

    next=next+1
    write(unit'next,1) array
1   format(13730a1)

good luck,
--dick