When you access files through the integrated file system, data
in the files may or may not be converted, depending on the open mode requested
when the file is opened.
An open file can be in one of two open modes:
- Binary
- The data is read from the file and written to the file without conversion.
The application is responsible for handling the data.
- Text
- The data is read from the file and written to the file, assuming it is
in textual form. When the data is read from the file, it is converted from
the coded character set identifier (CCSID) of the file to the CCSID of the
application, job, or system receiving the data. When data is written to the
file, it is converted from the CCSID of the application, job, or system to
the CCSID of the file. For true stream files, any line-formatting characters
(such as carriage return, tab, and end-of-file) are just converted from one
CCSID to another.
When reading from record files that are being used as
stream files, end-of-line characters (carriage return and line feed) are appended
to the end of the data in each record. When writing to record files:
- End-of-line characters are removed.
- Tab characters are replaced by the appropriate number of blanks to the
next tab position.
- Lines are padded with either blanks (for a source physical file member)
or nulls (for a data physical file member) to the end of the record.
On an open request, one of the following can be specified:
- Binary, Forced
- The data is processed as binary regardless of the actual content of the
file. The application is responsible for knowing how to handle the data.
- Text, Forced
- The data is assumed to be text. The data is converted from the CCSID
of the file to the CCSID of the application.
A default of Binary, Forced is used for the integrated
file system open() function.