Xref: utzoo comp.os.vms:8754 comp.unix.wizards:11198 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!psuvax1!rutgers!iuvax!bsu-cs!dhesi From: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) Newsgroups: comp.os.vms,comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: VMS vs. UNIX file system Message-ID: <3997@bsu-cs.UUCP> Date: 18 Sep 88 05:47:05 GMT References: <411@marob.MASA.COM> <3597@encore.UUCP> <3438@crash.cts.com> Reply-To: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana Lines: 16 In article <3438@crash.cts.com> jeh@crash.CTS.COM (Jamie Hanrahan) writes: >I much prefer VMS's variable-length-record text file format >to Unix's byte-stream. Why? Because the Unix byte stream uses perfectly >legitimate data as a record separator. UNIX files have no records, so there is no record separator. But if you consider lines of text to be records and the newline character to be a record separator (the concept is in your mind, not in the filesystem), then VMS has a similar problem: The low-level I/O routines use perfectly legitimate data for administrative information! Only at the RMS level is the overhead data made out-of-band. And even under UNIX, it is perfectly possible for an ISAM library to maintain out-of-band administrative data. -- Rahul Dhesi UUCP:!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!dhesi