This chapter describes the input and output statements used in stream-oriented data transmission. Features that apply to stream-oriented and record-oriented data transmission, including files, file attributes, and opening and closing files, are described in Input and output.
Stream-oriented data transmission treats a data set as a continuous stream of data values in character, graphic, or mixed character data form. Within a program, record boundaries are generally ignored. However, a data set consists of a series of lines of data, and each data set created or accessed by stream-oriented data transmission has a line size associated with it. In general, a line is equivalent to a record in the data set, but the line size does not necessarily equal the record size.
The stream-oriented data transmission statements can also be used for internal data movement, by specifying the STRING option instead of specifying the FILE option. Although the STRING option is not an input/output operation, its use is described in this chapter.
Stream-oriented data transmission can be list-directed, data-directed, or edit-directed.
The following sections detail the data transmission statements and their options, and how to specify the list-, data-, and edit-directed data. How to accommodate double-byte characters is discussed in DBCS data in stream I/O.