  DCL lexicals and raw data? 
 The Question is:
 
Using f$fao to perform data conversion.
 
Hello,
 
      I have a variety of indexed, rms files which I would like to extract and
 convert data to text. The data is stored as binary, numeric, alpha, bcd,
 F_numeric and Numeric_F. How can I use f$fao to convert these datatypes to text?
Do you have any dcl commnad procedures that I could use as a model?
 
 
 The Answer is:
 
  DCL cannot directly represent nor directly process formats such as
  floating point and BCD.
 
  Bitfields, integers, and strings can be processed, using DCL lexicals
  including f$fao and (more commonly) f$cvui.  Bitfield insertions are
  also possible, using the substring operators available within symbol
  substitution.  Bitfields can be used for booleans, and for integers.
 
  Examples of substring operations exist in the string operator (the
  colon-equals and equals-sign) help topics, and in the help topic
  for f$cvui.  The help library also provides examples for f$fao, of
  course.
 
  An application program that processes the file data accordingly, and
  that then creates DCL symbols (strings or strings containing floating
  point, etc) via calls to lib$set_symbol is also easily feasible.
 
  OpenVMS documentation and books are available on the topic of DCL.
 
