Definitions for "Internal file"
The designated internal storage space (or variable buffer) that is manipulated during input and output. An internal file can be a character variable, character array, character array element, or character substring. In general, an internal file contains one record. However, an internal file that is a character array has one record for each array element.
A variable that is used as a file storage medium for formatted I/O. Internal files are stored in memory and typically are used to convert data from a machine representation to a character representation by use of edit descriptors.
a character-string object, such as a constant, variable, substring, array, element of an array, or field of a structured record--all of type character