Re: what say you about subfiles?

I just was looking over IBM's sample subfile program in VaRPG.  I'd
copied, it, changed the file to display a data file on our AS/400 and was
showing the output to someone that knows the data.  The VaRPG subfile
offers a "navigator bar", and one of the icons is "Last page."  He clicked
it and laughed, saying "This is a 40,000 record file. Lets see..."  and
then looked really funny.  Then he looked again and said "It can't read
the file that fast!"   

To make a boring story short, a review of the code showed that the last
page had been loaded by taking the number of records in the file and
subtracting the page size, and filling the subfile from that point.  Very
neat, very fast.  Also a new technique I'd not seen before.

All of which puts me of a mind to ask for a religious discussion on
subfiles.  If DOU and DOW can start lengthy debate, I should think proper
subfile techniques could be fascinating.  

One of the downsides of the technique described is that it appears to work
on a physical file only, disregarding all logicals, even if specified.

-- 
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boothm@ibm.net
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