Release Notes for VAX/VMS Version of PARC
-----------------------------------------

Long file names are truncated after eight characters, extensions
after three.

Wildcards are processed differently in different contexts.  This
is perhaps unfortunate and a bit confusing.  If you are naming
VMS files (such as files to be added to an archive), then normal
VMS wildcard rules apply: * matches any number of characters and
% matches a single character, and trailing context works
correctly (i.e. *Z.DAT only matches .DAT files that end in Z). 
If, on the other hand, you are naming files in the archive (such
as extracting or deleting), then normal DOS wildcard rules
apply: * matches any number of characters and ? matches a single
character, and trailing context is ignored (i.e. *Z.DAT matches
ALL .DAT files, not just those ending in Z).  

The time which is recorded in the archive is the creation time
of the VMS file.  When a file is extracted, the VMS file
creation time is set to the date stored in the archive and the
modification time is set to the time the file was extracted. 
This is similar to the behavior of the COPY command.

Archive files have the same file attributes as VMS executables
-- fixed length 512 byte records with no carriage control.  Any
file transfer program which can handle executables should thus
be able to transfer archives.  For example, an archive can be
moved from a Vax to an IBM-PC with Kermit by setting the file
type on the Vax to "FIXED" and the file type on the PC to
"BINARY".

When archiving in text mode (mode 0), the file is converted from
its RMS format into a stream format with embedded control
characters for carriage control (the Vax-11 C Run Time Library
manual explains this process in detail).  Any new-line
characters are replaced with carriage-return line-feed pairs to
conform to the normal DOS text file format.  Similarly, when
extracting, any carriage-return line-feed pairs are converted
into new-lines and the stream format is then converted into an
RMS file of varying length records with carriage-return carriage
control (the normal VMS text file format).

In mode 1 (image mode), the physical disk blocks are read or
written directly, bypassing any RMS record structure it may
have.  Extracted files have fixed length, 512 byte records with
no carriage control.  This is appropriate for executables, but
may not be appropriate for other types of files.

Since ALL the file data is preserved, the file can be restored
to its original RMS format by changing the format information in
the file header (no conversion of the file contents is needed). 
Although VMS does not provide any simple way to do this, Joe
Meadows' FILE utility does, and is probably available from the
same place you got PARC.

In the future, higher modes will be added to preserve the RMS
format automatically.

To use PARC on VMS, you must define PARC as a foreign command:

   $ PARC == "$disk:[directory]PARC.EXE"

(note the leading dollar sign -- that is what makes the symbol a
foreign command).  Once you have defined this symbol, you use
PARC just like you would use ARC on a PC.  For example:

   $ PARC A NEWARC *.C

This release should be about twice as fast as previous releases.