Language Reference

INFILE Statement

INFILE operand <options>;

The INFILE statement opens an external file for input or, if the file is already open, makes it the current input file. A subsequent INPUT statement reads from the specified file.

The arguments to the INFILE statement are as follows:

operand: is either a predefined filename or a quoted string that contains in parentheses the filename or character expression that refers to the pathname.
options: are explained in the following list.

The valid values for the options argument are as follows:

LENGTH=variable: specifies a variable into which the length of a record is stored.
RECFM=N: specifies that the file be read in as a pure binary file rather than as a file with record separator characters. To do this, you must use the byte operand (<) in the INPUT statement to get new records rather than use separate input statements or the new line (/) operator.

The following keywords control how a program behaves when an INPUT statement tries to read past the end of a record. The default behavior is STOPOVER.

FLOWOVER: enables the INPUT statement to go to the next record to obtain values for the variables.
MISSOVER: tolerates attempted reading past the end of the record by assigning missing values to variables read past the end of the record.
STOPOVER: treats going past the end of a record as an error condition, which triggers an end-of-file condition.

Several examples of INFILE statements follow:

filename in1 "student.dat";        /* specify filename IN1   */
infile in1;                        /* infile pathname        */

infile "student.dat";              /* path by quoted literal */

infile "student.dat" missover;     /* use missover option    */

See Chapter 8 for further information.