info-vax@ucbvax.ARPA (10/19/84)
From: Tony Li <Tli@Usc-Eclb> Hi all, A few months ago, I posted a request for info on RMS's locate mode. Well, no one knew anything about this superbly documented feature. I finally got around to looking at the sources... Normally we're using move mode. Here, when we do a $GET, RMS copies the record from its buffer to ours. If you do a $GET in locate mode, RMS returns a pointer to its buffer. This is returned in RAB$L_RBF and RAB$W_RSZ. Also, sometimes RMS will decide that you have to be in move mode anyway. It'll do this if (1) the record crosses block boundaries, (2) the file is open for update or (3) we're not reading SYS$INPUT. Sigh, Tony ;-)