Re: Can a PF have >1 record form

Thanks for the example, Jim.  Upon reading a record from the file, how do you
know which "format" it is?

When you update the record, do you just output ARBuffer?

Dan Bale
IT - AS/400
Handleman Company
248-362-4400  Ext. 4952

-------------------------- Original Message --------------------------
Dan,

No.  This has been a thorn in my side for a long time.  It was very
common in the S36 days to have a single file with two different file
formats, but with DDS you can only specify one of the formats.  I have
tried different things with join logicals, etc.. to no avail.

I finally found a solution that works.

I give no DDS to the file itself.  I then create 2 physical files with
the DDS for the file layouts for the 2 records.  These files never contain
any data.  In my program I open the real file as program defined.  I then
add ot my D-Specs an external data structure to those two files I made with
the DDS of the record layouts.  This here is a real world example of how this
looks and works.  Please note that although I am opening these up as Primary
files, they work just fine as full procedural.  This snippet was taken from
a one shot file update program I wrote:

FARFILE    UP   F  222        DISK

D FileNM_DS     E DS                  ExtName(ARFileNM)
D                                     Based(FileNM_DS@)
D                                     Prefix(NM_)
D FileNM_DS@      S               *
D
D FileCR_DS     E DS                  ExtName(ARFileCR)
D                                     Based(FileCR_DS@)
D                                     Prefix(CR_)
D FileCR_DS@      S               *

IARFile    NS
I                                  1  222  ARBuffer

C     *InzSR        BegSR
C
C                   Eval      FileNM_DS@ = %Addr(ARBuffer)
C                   Eval      FileCR_DS@ = %Addr(ARBuffer)
C
C                   EndSr
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