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From: gmt@ARIZONA.EDU ("Gregg Townsend")
Newsgroups: mod.computers.vax
Subject: copying VMS BACKUP save sets using FTP from Unix system
Message-ID: <8611260528.AA29122@megaron.arizona.edu>
Date: Wed, 26-Nov-86 00:28:10 EST
Article-I.D.: megaron.8611260528.AA29122
Posted: Wed Nov 26 00:28:10 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Nov-86 20:21:20 EST
References: <8611260520.AA25875@arizona.arizona.edu>
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I'm trying to prepare a VMS software package, in the form of a BACKUP save set,
for distribution via anonymous FTP.  The distributing machine will be a Vax
running 4.3 BSD Unix.  The save set copies to the Unix machine with no problems.
When I go to the VMS machine and copy the data back using binary FTP, the data
itself comes across fine but the block size gets set to 512 instead of the
correct (in this case) 8192.  To be precise, DIR/FULL shows
	Record format:  Fixed length 512 byte records
and everything else is correct.

There is a local utility here which resets the record format without altering
the file contents;  after running this, BACKUP can read the file.  What I need
now is a method that can be used by anyone who receives the file.  Is there a
way in a standard VMS system to do this?  The best anyone here could come up
with have involved kludges such as "copy to tape, then copy back" (which
assumes a tape drive) or "run this short little program" (which assumes an
appropriate compiler).  EXCHANGE and CONVERT appear almost-but-not-quite
capable of providing a fix.

If I have defined the problem too narrowly, and there's a better approach to
distributing a BACKUP file by FTP, by all means please let me know.

     Gregg Townsend / Computer Science Dept / Univ of Arizona / Tucson, AZ 85721
     +1 602 621 4325     gmt@Arizona.EDU (ARPAnet or CSnet)    ihnp4!arizona!gmt