Moving Binary Data: DST and Raw Files

 

Both raw and DST files are organized in fixed length records to make I/O and exchange of information as easy as possible. This record structure is essential to make the data readable on non-UNIX systems.

• Raw data

  have a record length of 8kB (8192 bytes). The data (words, longwords and text) are written in "VAX-friendly" byte ordering. MVS and AIX programs have to convert data and text after reading and before writing a raw data record. This is done automatically by the ulib routines.

• DST data

  have a record length of 3600 bytes. They are written in the CERN standard FZ-exchange format which stores text in ASCII, integers in Motorola/IBM ordering and floating point numbers in IEEE format in Motorola ordering. The basic I/O as well as the conversion to/from native format is done by the FZ package. On UNIX systems they must be addressed with the DST/... Y commands.

 
Table: How to copy binary files.

• VMS MVS disk
• VMS UNIX disk
• UNIX disk VMS
• UNIX disk MVS
• MVS disk UNIX disk and VMS
• MVS disk MVS Tape
• ULTRIX ltf
• AIX tcopy
• The bincopy utility for AIX and ULTRIX