VMS Help DTM, COMPARE, Command Qualifiers, /RECORDS  *Conan The Librarian (sorry for the slow response - running on an old VAX)

   For noninteractive and interactive terminal tests, the /RECORDS
   qualifier performs a record-by-record comparison of the result and
   benchmark files. The default is /SCREENS for interactive tests and
   /RECORDS for noninteractive tests.

   Records are identical only if they contain the same characters.
   Use this type of comparison only when you expect the record in
   which a string appears to be the same each time a comparison is
   performed.

   Use caution when specifying the /RECORDS qualifier for an
   interactive test because the records in the result file are not
   guaranteed to be written the same way each time the test runs.
   You might want to use the /RECORDS qualifier for an interactive
   test whose result file is not generated by Digital Test Manager, for
   example, if you rename a test output file to be DTM$RESULT.