_EDC_ANSI_OPEN_DEFAULT

Affects the characteristics of MVS text files opened with the default attributes. Issuing the following command causes text files opened with the default characteristics to be opened with a record format of FIXED and a logical record length of 254 in accordance with the ANSI standard for C.
     setenv("_EDC_ANSI_OPEN_DEFAULT","Y",1);

When this environment variable is not specified and a text file is created without its record format or LRECL defined, then the default is a variable record format.