Developer Guide and Reference

ID 767251
Date 10/31/2024
Public
Document Table of Contents

Record Length

Use the RECL specifier to specify the record length.

The units used for specifying record length depend on the form of the data:

  • Formatted files (FORM= 'FORMATTED'): Specify the record length in bytes.

  • Unformatted files (FORM= 'UNFORMATTED'): Specify the record length in 4-byte units, unless you specify the assume byterecl compiler option to request 1-byte units.

For all but variable-length sequential records on 64-bit addressable systems, the maximum record length is 2.147 billion bytes (2,147,483,647 minus the bytes for record overhead). For variable-length sequential records on 64-bit addressable systems, the theoretical maximum record length is about 17,000 gigabytes. When considering very large record sizes, also consider limiting factors such as system virtual memory.

NOTE:

The RECL specifier is ignored for stream access.