NET/MASTER Network Control Language (NCL) Reference Manual

FILE OPEN
Verbs
106126 Tandem Computers Incorporated 3–87
FILE OPEN The FILE OPEN verb opens a file, a pair of files, or an operating system process, and
prepares it for accessing by subsequent file verbs.
FILE OPEN [ DATA= rest-of-statement ]
[ FORMAT={ DELIMITED | MAPPED | UNMAPPED } ]
ID= fileid
[ KEYEXTR={ NO | YES } ]
[ MAP= map-name ]
[ UDBID= fileid ]
DATA= rest-of-statement
contains the text of a message that is sent to the security exit process, if one is
configured.
Note DATA, if specified, must be specified last.
FORMAT
specifies the file format processing requirements. The following formats are
available.
DELIMITED
specifies a format used when reading into, or writing from, NCL variables.
When reading a record the contents are scanned for the delimiter character
(hexadecimal ’FF’); each delimited section of a record is regarded as a field;
each field is placed into a separate variable.
MAPPED
specifies a file record that is generally accessed as a complete entity by reading
it into or writing it from a mapped data object (MDO). Mapping Services is
used to refer, by symbolic name, to individual fields within the record. For
the special case of a map name of $NCL, the record may be read into or
written from standard variables. Mapping Services is used to format or access
the MDO containing the variables. This provides data transparency by
allowing variables containing any data to be placed in file records for
subsequent NCL access.
UNMAPPED
specifies that by accessing a file in UNMAPPED format, any file’s records can
be processed using NCL variables (but not Mapping Services). When reading
a record, the contents are segmented and placed into the variables specified.
When writing a record, all variables are concatenated to form the actual
record.