VMS Help CMS, DIFFERENCES, file, Qualifiers, /FORMAT=(data-format, data-partition, [no]generation-differences)  *Conan The Librarian (sorry for the slow response - running on an old VAX)

    Controls whether the output file is formatted, specifies the
    type of formatting, and controls whether a list of generation
    differences is included in the DIFFERENCES output. You can specify
    the parameters in any order.

    data-format

    Specifies the type of format. Possible values for data formats
    include:   ASCII (Default), DECIMAL, HEXADECIMAL, and OCTAL.

    data-partition

    Specifies the type of data partition. Possible values for data
    partitions include:  BYTE, LONGWORD, RECORDS (Default), and WORD.

    generation-differences

    Specifies whether or not a list of generation differences is to
    be included in the DIFFERENCES output. This option is applicable
    only if two element generations are compared by the DIFFERENCES
    command. In any other case, this option is ignored.  Possible
    values for generation-differences include: GENERATION_DIFFERENCES
    and NOGENERATION_DIFFERENCES (Default).