5. FILES › 5.2 Intermediate Files

5.2 Intermediate Files

Intermediate files contain data that has been read from the
input files and formatted for transmission.  They are
sequential in organization and can be variable or fixed block
format, depending on whether the input files contained VM
Account data, VM Monitor data or other data.

Intermediate files are formatted according to the parameters
set with the VM Data Transfer Parameter Specification panels
described in Chapter 7.  They are in minimal, compressed, or
split formats.  When SPOOL is used as the Transmission Mode,
split format is used.  If Data Compression is specified as Y,
compressed format is used.  The compressed and split formats
will be used in combination to transmit compressed data via
SPOOL.  Minimal processing format will be used if
transmitting data via FILE (disk or tape) with no
compression.

When minimal processing is requested, the intermediate file
has the same format as the input file.  This is termed the
minimal processing format.  When data compression is
requested, the intermediate file uses the compressed format,
which has variable length records.

When split data is requested, the intermediate file has a
split data format that uses fixed block, 80-byte records.
When both compression and split data are requested, the
intermediate file has fixed block, 80-byte records.

These formats are discussed in the following sections:

    1 - Minimal Processing Format
    2 - Compressed Format
    3 - Split Data Format