(j3.2006) Inconsistency between OPEN and INQUIRE

[Robert Corbett]

On 10/18/2016 5:17 PM, Van Snyder wrote:
> For a formatted connection, all specifiers in the INQUIRE statement that
> inquire the value of a corresponding specifier in the OPEN statement
> return the same value, or the default if a specifier didn't appear,
> except ENCODING.
>
> In the OPEN statement (12.5.6.9) the value of the ENCODING specifier is
> required to be UTF-8 or DEFAULT.  If it's not specified, the default
> value is DEFAULT.  If a unit is connected other than by an OPEN
> statement, defaults apply, so the value of ENCODING is DEFAULT.
>
> In the INQUIRE statement (12.10.2.10), the values returned are UTF-8 if
> the connection has UTF-8 encoding, UNDEFINED if the connection is not
> for formatted input/output, and UNKNOWN otherwise.  12.10.2.10 says "if
> the processor is unable to determine the encoding of the file or if the
> unit... is not connected to a file."
>
> If the unit is connected to a file, even preconnected to a file that
> does not exist, it would seem reasonable to return DEFAULT if that was
> the value used or assumed by default in the OPEN statement, or if the
> unit was preconnected and opened by other than an OPEN statement.
>
> Is there a reason for this inconsistency?

I would assume that the INQUIRE statement should return the name of
the encoding for the connection instead of DEFAULT if it knows what
the encoding is.

Bob Corbett