DFCONV error message 131 (Error opening input file)

When trying to convert an 8.5 GB line-sequential file into a Index-sequential file with DFCONV the following error message appeared: 131 (Error opening input file).

The index file creation stopping at 4GB as this is the file handler limit for a normal Micro Focus format indexed file. As stated in the product documentation, you have to use files configured as IDXFORMAT(8) format to allow indexed files to go above this limit.

It is always a concern when a line sequential file is used as the input format, as line sequential files used for this purpose are often created containing binary data without the NULL protection bytes (which should be inserted before each non-displayable, binary, character) so the data in the file cannot be correctly interpreted when they are read. Binary field characters can be interpreted as CR LF EOF TAB when reading without NULL protection bytes.

In addition, when trying to convert this size a file, you may see a file status 24 appear, which indicates a boundary violation on writing to the indexed file. If this occurs, it may indicate that you have hit an Operating System limit on that drive. In this case, you should insure that the output file is not being written to the same drive as the input file.

If/when you change the format of the indexed file to IDXFORMAT(8), you should delete the *.IDX file that belonged to the old micro focus indexed file as IDXFORMAT(8) does not use an .IDX file, but the file handler would look at it when opening the .DAT file if it exists.

When you use the directive IDXFORMAT(8) in your COBOL program it should work without problems and you can build this into your application with the help of a config file. For more information about the config file please read Chapter 6: File Handler Configuration. Or in the Help Menu under: Index > Configuration, File Handler.

Reference Knowledge Base Document #18530