VMS Help PASCAL, Input Output, Seq Access Output, REWRITE  *Conan The Librarian (sorry for the slow response - running on an old VAX)

  The REWRITE procedure readies a file for output.

  Syntax:

     REWRITE( file_variable [[, file_name]]
              [[, ERROR := error-recovery]] );

  The 'file_variable' is the name of the file variable  associated
  with the output file.

  The 'file_name' is a string expression to be associated with the
  file_variable.   Files  opened  with REWRITE and the 'file_name'
  stay resident on the disk after the program exits.  However,  if
  the  file was opened with the OPEN procedure, the 'file_name' is
  ignored.

  The 'error-recovery' specifies the action  to  be  taken  if  an
  error occurs during execution of the routine.  By default, after
  the first error, the error message is printed and  execution  is
  stopped.

  The file can be in any mode before REWRITE is called to set  the
  mode  to  generation.  If the file variable has not been opened,
  REWRITE creates and opens it using the same defaults as the OPEN
  procedure.

  The REWRITE procedure truncates a file to length zero  and  sets
  EOF and UFB to TRUE.  You can then write new components into the
  file with the PUT, WRITE, and  WRITELN  procedures  (WRITELN  is
  defined   only  for  text  files).   After  the  file  is  open,
  successive calls to REWRITE truncate  the  existing  file  to  a
  length of zero; they do not create new versions of the file.

  To update an existing file  with  sequential  organization,  you
  must   either   use  the  EXTEND  procedure,  use  the  TRUNCATE
  procedure, or copy the contents to another file, specifying  new
  values for the components you need to update.

  When applied to a file with relative  or  indexed  organization,
  REWRITE  deletes  the  contents  of  the  file and sets the file
  position to the beginning of an empty file.

  See the "Compaq Pascal Language Reference Manual" for a complete
  description of the REWRITE procedure.