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The form of the CARD CHARACTERS command is:

CARD CHARACTERS n,

CARD CHARACTERS BINARY n,

See also RECORD LENGTH which is the preferred method.

If using binary data the RCP BINARYDATA should be used in the control stage before naming the data file(s).

The first form is used for character data (ASC or UNI) data files.  This form treats cols as fields, so $123 will be treated as $123-123.  The MAKE command cannot be used except to make a col blank and the CT function cannot count cols or fields.

The second form is used for binary data. It can also be used with an ASC file provided RCP BINARYDATA is used.

The CARD CHARACTERS command may appear only once, in the Data Stage, after START DATA and before the first executable command. It may not appear if a CARD NUMBERS command is present. It is non-executable and serves to tell CL the number of data locations to reserve in characters (UNI), or bytes (ASC).

The presence of this command indicates that there are to be no buffers and that the data area is a continuous area of n locations which may be any number up to 350000.

Unless a field is used in a READ command, the entire data area is replaced each time READ (or START DATA) is executed. If the input record is less than n locations, the remaining characters are set to blank.

Unless a field is used with the PUNCH command, the entire data area is output each time a PUNCH command is executed.

When CARD CHARACTERS BINARY is used, the data area for processing by CL is thought of as containing n "card data locations", named $1-$n.

Note that UNLOAD and SELECT BUFFER may not be used with CARD CHARACTERS.

Examples of CARD CHARACTER commands:

card characters 250,

card characters binary 80,