HP OpenVMS Systems Documentation

Guide to OpenVMS File Applications

This chapter describes record processing to help you use the run-time record operations described in Chapter 9. This chapter provides information about the following subjects:

• Record operations appropriate to high-level languages
• Record operations for file organizations
• Record environment as it relates to record positioning
• Synchronous versus asynchronous record operations

Record operations are performed by OpenVMS RMS (hereafter referred to as RMS) primary or secondary services. Primary services have functional equivalents in high-level language record operations, whereas secondary services are specific to RMS functions.

Section 8.2 describes the five primary services. For a brief description of the secondary services, refer to Section 8.3, and for more detailed descriptions of the secondary services, refer to the OpenVMS Record Management Services Reference Manual.

8.2 Primary Services

This section describes the five services that are functionally similar to related high-level language operations. The following table provides a brief description of each of these services and cites the similarities to high-level languages:

A single statement in a high-level language may correspond to one or several RMS record-processing service calls. For example, the COBOL statement DELETE uses the Delete service during sequential record access, but it uses the Find and Delete services during random record access.

File organization in part determines the types of record operations that a program can perform. Table 8-1 shows the major record operations that RMS permits for each file organization.

The remainder of this section briefly describes the record retrieval (Find and Get) services, the record insertion (Put) service, the record modification (Update) service, and the record deletion (Delete) service. Note that all references to services imply applicability to similar functional capabilities found in high-level languages.

8.2.1 Locating and Retrieving Records

You can use the Find and Get services to locate and retrieve a record. The Find service locates a record and establishes its location as the current-record position in a record stream but does not return the record to a buffer. The Get service locates the record, establishes its location as the current-record position in the record stream, and returns it to the buffer area you specify.

If you use the Get service, you must allocate a buffer area in the data portion of your program to store the retrieved record by defining an appropriate variable or multivariable record structure in the program.

In addition to retrieving the record, RMS returns to your program the length of the record (in control block field RAB$W_RSZ, record size) and the file address of the record (in control block field RAB$L_RBF, record buffer). If you direct RMS only to locate the record, it does not write the record into your buffer. Instead, it sets the RAB$W_RSZ and RAB$L_RBF fields to point to an internal buffer where the record is located.

When using indexed files, you may need to allocate a buffer for the desired key and to specify its length. When using high-level languages, the language's compiler may automatically handle the allocation and size specification of the record buffer and the key buffer.

In some applications, you can minimize record I/O and improve performance by using the Find service instead of the Get service. For example, a process does not have to retrieve a record when it is preparing to invoke the Update, Delete, Release, or Truncate service. If a process intends to update a record that is accessible to other processes, it should lock the record until it completes the update.

For interactive applications where the user verifies that the appropriate record is being accessed before deleting it or updating it, the program should use the Get service instead of the Find service.

In some situations, a process may use two services and two types of record access to retrieve a set of records. For example, the process might use the Find service and random access mode to locate the first record in the set and then switch to the Get service for sequentially retrieving the records in the set.

An efficient use of the Find service is to create a table of RFAs (record file addresses) to be used for rapidly accessing the records in the same file.

Record retrieval operations are typically used to repetitively read and process a set of records. As part of this type of operation, your program should check for an end-of-file condition after each Find or Get service.

For more information about the Find and Get services, refer to the OpenVMS Record Management Services Reference Manual.

8.2.2 Inserting Records

The Put service adds a record to the file. Within the data portion of your program, you must provide a buffer for the record to be added. When calling RMS directly, the program must also supply the length of each record to be written. This is a constant value with fixed-length records but varies from record to record when adding variable-length or VFC records. When using high-level languages, however, the language's compiler may automatically specify the record buffer size or supply a means to simplify its specification.

The current-record position is especially important when adding records to a sequential file. RMS establishes the current-record position at the end of file for any record stream associated with a file opened for adding records. To add records to a relative file or to an indexed file, use random access (by key or record number), unless the program adds records sequentially by a specified ordering of primary keys or by relative record number.

The update-if option replaces an existing record using the Put service when you choose random access mode. When superseding existing records, consider using this option to add records to a relative or indexed file. A program can use the update-if option to update a record in a sequential file that is being accessed randomly by relative record number.

Be careful with automatic record locking when you use this option for a shared file because the Put service briefly releases record locks applied by the Get or Find service before the Update operation begins. This could permit another record stream to delete or update the record between the time that the program invokes the Put service and the beginning of the Update service.

Consider using the Update service instead of the Put service with the update-if option to update an existing record in a shared file.

When a file contains alternate keys with characteristics that prohibit duplicate values, the application must be prepared to handle duplicate-alternate-key errors.

For more information about the Put service, refer to the OpenVMS Record Management Services Reference Manual.

8.2.3 Updating Records

The Update service modifies an existing record in a file. Your program must first locate the appropriate record and optionally retrieve the record itself, by calling either the Find service or the Get service. As with the Put service, your program must provide a buffer within the data portion of the program to hold the record that is to be updated.

When calling RMS directly, the program must also supply the length of each record to be written. This is a constant value when updating fixed-length records but varies from record to record when updating variable-length records or VFC records. Note that some high-level language compilers may automatically handle record buffer allocation and size specification or may supply a means to simplify its specification.

Your program must establish the current-record position before it updates a record. If the file is shared, the service that establishes the record position should also lock the record.

When you update indexed file records, take care not to alter the value of any key field that has been specified as unchangeable, for example, the primary key. To change the value of a record's primary key, you must replace the existing record with a new record having the desired primary key value. You can do this using the Put and Delete services respectively, or, where applicable, you may use the Put service with the update-if (RAB$L_ROP RAB$V_UIF) option.

When updating indexed file records, you do not have to specify the key of reference.

For more information about the Update service and record-processing options, refer to the OpenVMS Record Management Services Reference Manual.

8.2.4 Deleting Records

The Delete service removes a record from the file. You cannot delete individual records from sequential files, but you can truncate sequential files using the Truncate service. As with the Update service, the Delete service must be preceded by a Find or Get service to establish the current-record position.

When deleting records from an indexed file with alternate indexes, you can specify the fast-delete option to reduce the amount of time needed to delete a record. When you invoke the Delete service and specify the fast-delete option, RMS does not attempt to remove any of the pointers from alternative indexes to the deleted record.

You improve performance by postponing the processing needed to eliminate the pointers from alternative indexes to the record. However, there are disadvantages to using the fast-delete option:

• The unused pointers from the alternate indexes result in a corresponding waste of space.
• If the program later tries to access the deleted record from an alternate index, RMS must traverse the pointer linkage, find that the record no longer exists, and then perform the processing that was avoided originally with the Delete service.

Use the fast-delete option only if the immediate improvement in performance is worth the added space and overhead. Typically, you use the fast-delete option for indexed files that implement alternate keys and require frequent maintenance.

Conversely, avoid the fast-delete option for most read-only indexed files and for indexed files that are infrequently updated.

For more information about the Delete service, refer to the OpenVMS Record Management Services Reference Manual.

8.3 Secondary Services

This section provides very brief descriptions of the secondary services. Note that each of the services performs a specialized function with few options.

In addition to the record-processing services, a variety of file-processing services are also available. For more information about both types of processing services and the options that apply to each, see the OpenVMS Record Management Services Reference Manual.

8.4 Record Access for the Various File Organizations

To retrieve or insert a file record for a particular record stream, your program must specify either sequential or random access.

Sequential access can be used with all file organizations. For sequential files, sequential access implies that records are accessed according to their physical position in the file. For relative files, sequential access implies that records are accessed according to the ascending order of relative record numbers. In indexed files, sequential access implies that records are accessed according to a specified ordering of values for a particular key or keys.

Random access is defined as one of the following:

• Random access by key for indexed files implies that RMS uses the specified key value (contained within the record itself) to locate the desired record.
• Random access by relative record number for relative files and for sequential files having fixed-length records implies that the specified relative record number is used to locate the desired record. The relative record number does not necessarily reside in the record.
• Random access by RFA implies that the specified RFA is used to locate the desired record. This access mode is supported for all three file organizations and is normally available only to programs written in VAX MACRO or similar low-level languages.

Record access is specified using language statements or by establishing the appropriate control block field values (not offset values) in the RAB.

The appropriate RAB values in the access mode specification field, identified by the symbolic offset RAB$B_RAC, are as follows:

• You specify sequential access by inserting the value RAB$C_SEQ in the RAB$B_RAC field.
• You specify either random access by key or random access by relative record number by inserting the value RAB$C_KEY in the RAB$B_RAC field. This access mode is used to randomly access records in indexed files using a specified key value. It is also used to randomly access records by record number in relative files and in sequential files having fixed-length records.
• You specify random access by RFA for all file organizations by inserting the value RAB$C_RFA in the RAB$B_RAC field.

Your program may also need to specify the key or other record identifier needed to access the records. For indexed files, there are additional key-related options.

The record access mode can be changed without reopening the file or reconnecting the record stream. For example, you can use random access by key to establish the current-record position in an indexed file and then retrieve records sequentially by a specified sort order. Note, however, that changing modes in this manner requires program access to the RAB$B_RAC control block field at run time.

The record access mode, in conjunction with the file organization, is what determines the manner in which a record is selected. In the following sections, the sequential and random access modes are discussed in the context of the applicable file organizations. Random access by RFA is discussed separately because it applies to disk files, regardless of file organization.

The following discussion of record access modes is directed primarily toward services that insert records and services that retrieve records. For additional details about these services, see the OpenVMS Record Management Services Reference Manual.

8.4.1 Processing Sequential Files

A program can read sequential files on both tape and disk devices using the sequential record access mode. If the file resides on disk, the random access by RFA mode can be used to read records, and if the file uses the fixed-length record format, the random access by relative record number mode is permitted.

You can add records only to the end of a sequential file.

All record access modes permit you to establish a new current-record position in a sequential file using the Find service. With sequential access, the Find service permits you to skip over records. With either random access by relative record number or random access by RFA, the Find service establishes a starting point for sequential Get services.

You cannot randomly delete records from a sequential file. However, you can randomly update records in a sequential file if the file is on disk and if the update does not change the record size.

The following sections discuss the use of sequential and random access modes with sequential files.

8.4.1.1 Sequential Access

The sequential access mode is supported for sequential files on all devices. It is the only record access mode that is supported for nondisk devices, such as terminals, mailboxes, and magnetic tapes.

With sequential access, RMS returns records from sequential files in the order in which they were stored. When a program has retrieved all of the records from a sequential file, any further attempt to sequentially access records in the file causes RMS to return an end-of-file (no more data) condition code.

In sequential access mode, you can add records only to the end of a sequential file, that is, the file location immediately following the current-record position.

8.4.1.2 Random Access

You can use the relative record number to randomly retrieve and insert records in sequential files having fixed-length records. Records are numbered in ascending order, starting with number 1.

In a sequential file, records are usually inserted at the end of the file. To insert records randomly within the current boundaries of the file at a relative record number less than or equal to the highest record number, set the update-if option (FDL attribute CONNECT UPDATE_IF; RAB$L_ROP bit RAB$V_UIF) to overwrite existing records.

When accessing a sequential file randomly by relative record number, your program must provide the record number at symbolic offset RAB$L_KBF and must specify a key length of 4 at symbolic offset RAB$B_KSZ, in the RAB.