Establishing record formats

You can code a record format of F, V, S, or U in the RECORDING MODE clause. COBOL determines the record format from the RECORD clause or from the record descriptions associated with the FD entry for the file. If you want the records to be blocked, code the BLOCK CONTAINS clause in the FD entry.

The following example shows how the FD entry might look for a file that has fixed-length records:

FILE SECTION.
FD  COMMUTER-FILE-MST
    RECORDING MODE IS F
    BLOCK CONTAINS 0 RECORDS
    RECORD CONTAINS 80 CHARACTERS.
01  COMMUTER-RECORD-MST.
    05  COMMUTER-NUMBER        PIC  X(16).
    05  COMMUTER-DESCRIPTION   PIC  X(64).

A recording mode of S is not supported for files in the z/OS® UNIX file system. The above example is appropriate for such a file.