File Transfer Utility - vio

vio is a file transfer utility similar to the UNIX program cpio. vio allows you to collect a group of files together into archives, and allows you to extract some or all of these files from these archives. Typically, an archive is some external media such as a tape or a diskette, but the archive may also be another disk file. vio is typically used to back up a set of files or to move files from one machine to another.

vio is particularly well suited for moving files to a different machine, because:

1. vio is available on a wide-range of operating systems, including Windows, UNIX, and Linux.
2. vio automatically adjusts for certain machine-dependent aspects such as byte-swapping.
3. vio handles multiple volumes gracefully.
4. On any system where Vision is supported, vio can automatically convert ACUCOBOL-GT indexed data files to the appropriate format for the target machine.

vio runs in two modes, the input mode (-i) and the output mode (-o). The syntax for each mode, with all possible options, is shown here:

vio -o [ -b ] [ -f file ] [ -u ] [ -g ] [ -h headerfile ] 
       [ -k ][ -l listfile ] [ -pr ] [ -s  blocks ] [ -v ] 

vio -i [ -cd ] [ -f file ] [ -g ] [ -h bytes ] [ -kmnstv23456 ]  [ files ]

The input mode reads vio archives to extract files. The output mode creates new vio archives.

In the output mode, vioreads its standard input for a list of files to place in the archive. The archive is written to its standard output.

In the input mode, vio reads the archive from its standard input and extracts all the files. The extracted files have the same names, permissions, and owners that they had when the archive was created.

If files are specified, then only the named files are extracted. Note that each file must exactly match the name of a file in the archive; no wild card characters are allowed.

When vio encounters an ACUCOBOL-GT indexed data file, it treats that file specially. When it's running in output mode, it extracts each data record from the file and writes that record to the archive along with some formatting information. When that file is later read in the input mode, a new indexed data file is created with the proper format, and each data record is loaded into the file using the host's indexed file system. Using this technique, vio is able to transfer an indexed file so that it is ready for use on the target machine.

When it's archiving files other than indexed files or ACUCOBOL-GT object files, vio assumes that the files are text files. It performs any conversions necessary to match the text file conventions on the host machine. For example, if a file is transferred from a UNIX system to a Windows system, new-line characters are translated into carriage-return, line-feed sequences. The -p option described below can cause these files to be treated as binary files instead, in which case no translation occurs. (If you are transferring multiple files at one time, some ASCII and some binary, do not use the -p option. Instead, add a space followed by a b or a B after the name of each binary file in the filename list. The <space> b prevents translation from occurring on an individual file.)