Just decided to ignore my own advice - SAVFs are curious creatures - DSPFD does show the following -
Save File Attributes
File level identifier . . . . . . . . . . . : 1170216170752
Creation date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 02/16/17
Text 'description' . . . . . . . . . . . . : TEXT
Maximum file wait time . . . . . . . . . . : WAITFILE *IMMED
Share open data path . . . . . . . . . . . : SHARE *NO
Maximum record length . . . . . . . . . . . : 528
Current number of records . . . . . . . . . : 952
Maximum records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : MAXRCDS *NOMAX
Auxiliary storage pool ID . . . . . . . . . : ASP 1
But the format information lists the SAVF name as the format name, with 0 fields and 0 length.
As David Gibbs reminded, it IS possible to read the thing "as if"
----- Original Message -----
From: "mark s waterbury" <mark.s.waterbury@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, August 2, 2021 11:56:26 AM
Subject: Re: Save file exclusively locked when displaying?
James,
IIRC, what Dave's nice tool did was to load the entire contents of the save file into a "space" (*USRSPC or heap space, etc.), and then does his "magic" working on that data in that space (think of it like a large array).
This is necessary because there is no way to "seek" to different relative record numbers within a "save file" (because it's not really a "file".)
All the best,
Mark S. Waterbury
On Monday, August 2, 2021, 12:48:39 PM EDT, James H. H. Lampert via MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 8/2/21 9:38 AM, Mark Waterbury wrote:
You cannot read and update individual "records" in a save file; it
can only be read or written in its entirety, from start to end ... as
a sort of "atomic" operation. If you have ever canceled a SAVOBJ
command and tried to display an "incomplete" save file, you will get
errors.
Actually, if I remember right, that's not *entirely* true: digging into
a save file, record-by-record, is part of how Dave McKenzie's UNDEL2 (a
customized version of which has been incorporated into our QuestView
product) does its magic.
It would, however, take me the better part of the day to refamiliarize
myself with the details.
--
JHHL
midrange.com
