VMS Help  —  FORTRAN  Statements  OPEN  RECORDTYPE
  Indicates the type of records in a file.  It takes the following
  form:

  RECORDTYPE = typ

  typ  Is a character expression with one of the following
       values:

  'FIXED'      All records are one size. Short records are padded
               with blanks (formatted files) or zeros (unformatted
               files).
  'VARIABLE'   Records can vary in length.
  'SEGMENTED'  A record consists of one or more variable length
               records which may exist in different physical blocks.
               Valid only for unformatted, sequential files with
               sequential access.
  'STREAM'     Data is not grouped into records and contains no
               control information.
  'STREAM_CR'  Variable-length records whose length is indicated by
               carriage-returns embedded in the data.
  'STREAM_LF'  Variable-length records whose length is indicated by
               line-feeds (new lines) embedded in the data.

  When you open a file, default record types are as follows:

  +-------------------------------------+---------------------+
  | File Type                           | Default Record Type |
  +-------------------------------------+---------------------+
  | Relative or indexed files           | 'FIXED'             |
  | Direct access sequential files      | 'FIXED'             |
  | Formatted sequential access files   | 'VARIABLE'          |
  | Unformatted sequential access files | 'SEGMENTED'         |
  +-------------------------------------+---------------------+

  A segmented record is a logical record consisting of one or more
  variable-length records (segments).  The logical record can span
  several physical records.  Only unformatted sequential-access files
  with sequential organization can have segmented records;
  'SEGMENTED' must not be specified for any other file type.

  Files containing segmented records can be accessed only by
  unformatted sequential data transfer statements.  You cannot use an
  unformatted READ statement to access such a file, unless you
  specify RECORDTYPE='SEGMENTED' in the OPEN statement.

  Normally, if you do not use the RECORDTYPE specifier when you are
  accessing an existing file, the record type of the file is used.
  However, if the file is an unformatted sequential-access file with
  sequential organization and variable-length records, the default
  record type is 'SEGMENTED'.

  If you use the RECORDTYPE specifier when you are accessing an
  existing file, the type that you specify must match the type of the
  existing file.

  If an output statement does not specify a full record for a file
  containing fixed-length records, the following occurs:

   o  In formatted files, the record is filled with blanks

   o  In unformatted files, the record is filled with zeros
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