It turns out I was not quite on the right track.  The 'record format' of the 
file does allow for a CRLF sequence embedded in it, but it does it by Base64 
encoding the data, rather than including an "additional" CRLF as I had assumed.

So now the question is, does z/OS have a Base64 decoding routine?  I see that 
Enterprise PL/I has one, but I don't see anything for Enterprise COBOL.  I can 
probably call a function from the C Runtime if there is one.  (And no, I am 
probably not going to call a Java routine...)

Thanks,
Frank

________________________________
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> on behalf of 
David W Noon <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, December 27, 2019 4:23 PM
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: VSAM record length 0

On Fri, 27 Dec 2019 22:55:35 +0000, Frank Swarbrick
<[email protected]> wrote abour VSAM record length 0:

> So I am trying to copy sequential file to a VSAM ESDS.  One of the
> lines in the source file has a record length of zero.  Apparently
> VSAM does not support zero-length records?  Can this be true?

It is true. The Record Descriptor Field at the high address end of the
Control Interval cannot be zero.

> This blank line has "meaning".  What are my options?

Append a CRC (or similar checksum) to each record -- you can pretend
it's for data integrity checking -- and for the zero-length record just
write the CRC. Just remember to strip the CRC when you read the dataset
back again.
--
Regards,

Dave  [RLU #314465]
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
[email protected] (David W Noon)
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