Create var length recs

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ArthurThum
Advanced Member
Posts: 25
Advanced Member
    Does any know how to force a file to be variable length from 4GL.
    I know file media needs to be Tape. But I cannot get variable lengths to come out.
    Vendor requires 4 recs lengths and must be var.
    How can this be accomplished with 4GL?
    Ragu Raghavan
    Veteran Member
    Posts: 476
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      If you have 4 different layouts defined in the WS and WRITE from there, I would think that a Line Feed/Carriage Return will be inserted after the last non-null byte, thus making it variable length?

      Let us say workdef has length 100 bytes defined. If you write from a WS layout that has 100 bytes, LF/CR will be after 100 bytes. If WS layout has 90 bytes, LF/CR after 90 bytes.
      ArthurThum
      Advanced Member
      Posts: 25
      Advanced Member
        That's what I would have thought but the records are coming out the max length defined in the workdef.
        I need to get them in diff sizes
        jaherb
        Veteran Member
        Posts: 164
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          Aathum... look up the sed command. I have used this command to create variable length records for the HIPAA extract, BN106. I really do not understand the sed command, but managed to get a hold of one that would strip off the excess characters at the end of the lines. The command I have used for this purpose looks like; sed 's/[ \t]*$//'. Wish I knew more about this command, but when I read about it, it doesn't make much sense to me.... but it does work. Good Luck