10/02/85  Format of a Listin Segment

The format of a listin segment consists of three parts--header,
fields, and data records.

The header contains several statements that give information about the
records.  The statements are:
   Comment_delimiter: c;     or Cd: c;
   Field_delimiter: f;       or Fd: f;
   Record_delimiter: r;      or Rd: r;
   Field_names: fn1,...fnK; or Fn: fn1,...fnK;
   Records:


The Comment_delimiter statement specifies the character(s) used to
delimit comments within the listin segment.  If you don't give it, no
comments are allowed.  The delimiter can either be "pl1", in which
case comments begin with "/*" and end with "*/", or a single character
chosen from the set !#$%&*=?@^|~, in which case that character is used
to begin and end a comment.  The Field_delimiter statement specifies
the character used to separate fields within a record; if you don't
supply it, the default is "=".  The Record_delimiter statement
specifies the character used to separate records; if you don't specify
it, the default is "$".  Record and field delimiters must be one
character long and must be from the set !#$%&*=?@^|~.  The Field_names
statement specifies all the field names that you can use in the listin
segment.  It is required.  Field names can be up to 32 characters
long, must begin with an alphabetic character, and otherwise must
contain only alphanumeric characters and underscores.


Everything after the end-of-the-header statement is taken to be record
information.  (The end-of-the-header statement is "Records:".)  Each
record must begin with a record delimiter.  Each field must begin with
a field delimiter.  Each field delimiter must be directly followed by
a field name.  The optional field value follows the field name,
separated by one or more white space characters (NL, SP, HT, NP, VT).
If leading and trailing white space is not to be removed from the
field value or if the field value contains record delimiter or field
delimiter characters, enclose the entire field value in quotes.  As in
PL/I, to enclose a quote character in a quoted string, double the
quote.


The fields contain the various types of information stored in a list
(e.g., first name, last name, street address, date of employment,
etc.).  Because data records are stored separately within a listin
file, give the field names with each data record.  Within a data
record, a field is specified by a field delimiter character followed
immediately by the field name (e.g., =lname).

The data records (or records) contain the specific information
associated witht the subject of each record.  A record can contain
some or all of the fields defined in the header, and fields not
specified for a record are considered to be null.  Duplicate fields
are not allowed within a record.

For related topics see lister.gi and listform_segment.gi; for examples
see the Multics WORDPRO Reference Manual (AZ98).


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Historical Background

This edition of the Multics software materials and documentation is provided and donated
to Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Group BULL including BULL HN Information Systems Inc. 
as a contribution to computer science knowledge.  
This donation is made also to give evidence of the common contributions of Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Bell Laboratories, General Electric, Honeywell Information Systems Inc., Honeywell BULL Inc., Groupe BULL
and BULL HN Information Systems Inc. to the development of this operating system. 
Multics development was initiated by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Project MAC (1963-1970),
renamed the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence in the mid 1970s, under the leadership
of Professor Fernando Jose Corbato. Users consider that Multics provided the best software architecture 
for managing computer hardware properly and for executing programs. Many subsequent operating systems 
incorporated Multics principles.
Multics was distributed in 1975 to 2000 by Group Bull in Europe , and in the U.S. by Bull HN Information Systems Inc., 
as successor in interest by change in name only to Honeywell Bull Inc. and Honeywell Information Systems Inc. .

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Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute these programs and their documentation for any purpose and without
fee is hereby granted,provided that the below copyright notice and historical background appear in all copies
and that both the copyright notice and historical background and this permission notice appear in supporting
documentation, and that the names of MIT, HIS, BULL or BULL HN not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining
to distribution of the programs without specific prior written permission.
    Copyright 1972 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Honeywell Information Systems Inc.
    Copyright 2006 by BULL HN Information Systems Inc.
    Copyright 2006 by Bull SAS
    All Rights Reserved