FcbRec

Offset Size Contents

+0       1  bDrvID       drive ID (see below)

+1       8  abName       left-justified, blank-padded (e.g. 'FILE    '

+9       3  abExt        left-justified, blank-padded (e.g. 'EXT'

+0cH      2  wCurBlock    current block number

+0eH      2  wRecSize     logical record size

+10H      4  lFileSize    length of file

+14H      2  rDate        Date created/last modified in FileTimeRec format

+14H      2  rTime        Time created/last modified in FileDateRec format

+16H      8  res          (reserved, undocumented)

+20H      2  wCurRecNo    current position in current block (0-7fH)

+21H      4  lRndmRecNo   current record number in entire file

37               size of an FcbRec

bDrvID  Drive number.  Before open: 0=default, 1=A, 2=B, etc.

After open:  0=A, 1=B, etc.)

abName  Filename.  If fewer than 8 characters, it is padded to 8 with

spaces (20H)

abExt  File extension.  If fewer than 3 characters, it is padded to 3

with spaces (30H)

wCurBlock  Current block number (a block is 128 records).  DOS sets to 0

when the file is opened

wRecSize  Size of a record, in bytes.  DOS sets to 128 on open.

lFileSize  Total size of the file, in bytes

rDate  File date in special format. See FileDateRec

rTime  File time in special format. See FileTimeRec

wCurRecNo  position within the current record (wCurRec)

lRndmRecNo  file position, specified as a number of records from the start

of the file.

Notes:   FCBs are obsolete, but still supported by DOS.  There is no

need to use this structure at all.

  Unopened FCB: Before opening a file, you need only supply

bDrvID, abName, and abExt (e.g.:  0,'MYFILE  TXT') and leave

room for DOS to fill in the other fields.

  Opened FCB: After successfully opening an FCB, the bDrvID

contains a non-zero drive number (A=1, B=3, etc), other fields

have been set up for access to the start of the file.

  I won't bother covering the arcane system of block-and-record

bookkeeping used to position the file pointer.  R.I.P.

  In order to open files that have a particular file attribute,

you must use an Extended FCB...

FcbExtendedRec

Offset Size Contents

-7       1  bSig         ffH (signature indicates Extended FCB)

-6       5  res          reserved

-1       1  bAttr        file attribute

+0       1  bDrvID       drive ID (see below)

.

.  (other fields as above)

.

...that is simply an FcbRec, preceded by 7 bytes, with [FCB-7]

being 0ffH and [FCB-1] being the file attribute.  Weird, huh?

See Also: FCB File I/O

Data Structures

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