jwp@larry.UUCP (Jeffrey W Percival) (02/25/89)
I'm cross-posting this to the unix group even though it's largely a VMS issue, because the problem arises in the Unix/VMS interface and wizards might be asked about this. I've been trying to compress files under VMS and kermit them to Unix (kermit is the only option here). The archived DECUS sources for compress, while containing a few minor compilation/distribution errors, do support this in principle. The problem I could not solve is that VMS kermit (version 3.1.066) does CR/LF insertion even when it is *not* in text mode. That is, I could not get kermit to transfer just the binary output of LZCOMP. In both "binary" and "fixed" modes, Unix received a file that was not compatible with LZDCMP. I finally had to write a little filter that transformed CR/LF pairs into LF. I tried many permutations of VMS EXCHANGE and CONVERT to try and get the VMS file type right, to no avail. Note this curiosity: if I kermit (binary) a LZCOMP file *into* VMS and then right back out again, VMS does this without corruption. It is only when I created the compressed file inside of VMS (when it knows much more about internal formats) that I could not get the binary file out. Binary FTP and decnet "image" copy (dcp -i) both work fine. The kermit/VMS combo is the killer. VMS file experts: am I missing something here? -- Jeff Percival (jwp@larry.sal.wisc.edu)