Moving JOVIAL files from VAX/VMS to SunOS, Solaris or HP-UX

Product Family: DJCS
Target CPU: Any
Language: JOVIAL
Host: Any

Since UNIX is case sensitive, care needs to be exercised when moving JOVIAL files from VAX/VMS, which is not case sensitive. Often, on VAX/VMS, file names are in all capital letters, such as MYFILE.J73;4. When this file is transferred to UNIX, the base file name can be upper or lower case, but the file extension must be in lower case (MYFILE.j73 or myfile.j73). Note also that the file revision indicator ( ';4' in this case ) has been removed.

Also, be aware of Carriage Return (CR) and Line Feed (LF) differences between platforms. When FTP’ing binary files, be sure to be in "binary" mode. When FTP’ing ASCII files, be sure to be in "ASCII" mode. This will prevent automatic translation problems from occurring. When in "ASCII" mode, most FTP programs will help you by converting end of line character(s) from one platform to the other.

For example:

An ASCII file on VAX/VMS ends lines with CR (0Dh). An ASCII file on UNIX ends lines with LF (0Ah). When you FTP a file from VAX/VMS to UNIX in "ASCII" mode, the CR’s are replace with LF’s. If you transfer an ASCII file in binary mode, there is no translation. This could affect the JOVIAL tools as they parse ASCII files, looking for host specific end of line character(s).

The opposite is required for binary files. You do not want to translate values in binary files. If you transfer a binary file in "ASCII" mode from VAX/VMS to a UNIX machine and that file happens to have values which would be interpreted as line termination characters in it, those values will be adjusted as necessary. Be sure to transfer binary files in "binary" mode.