COBOL Manual for TNS/E Programs (H06.08+, J06.03+)

Do not use buffered cache in applications that require each record to be actually written to
disk before execution of the next statement in the program.
See FILE-CONTROL Paragraph (page 115).
• Variable-Length Records
An Enscribe structured file can have variable-length records. See READ for Sequential or
Dynamic Access (page 405).
When you write to a file that is defined as having variable-length records, the length of the
record written depends on whether the file is declared with
RECORD CONTAINS rec-1 TO rec-2 CHARACTERS
or
RECORD IS VARYING IN SIZE FROM rec-1 TO rec-2 CHARACTERS
DEPENDING ON rec-size
form of the RECORD CONTAINS clause.
In the former case, the length of the record specified in the WRITE statement is the number of
characters written to the file system file.
In the latter case, the length of the record written is the value present in the rec-size data
item specified in the DEPENDING clause at the time the WRITE statement is executed.
492 Procedure Division Verbs