Re: VARLEN vs "BLOCK" Storage

 >> My manager is concerned by the amount of storage that my suggestion
would use... to much DASD" (as defined by the DSPFD command).

In essence your method will only use 100 bytes per record unless the actual
field content exceeds 100 bytes.

You manager should also take into account the amount of time that will be
spent repairing links etc. when the scheme he is proposing "breaks".  Since
you can't keep pointers in a file (and even in a user space they are
invalidated by save/restore) you have no alternative but to keep your own
positioning information and then rebuild pointers as needed.  On top of
that there is the logic needed to span records, plus the problems caused by
any update in the text that causes the field to "grow" (which could well
finish up looking like pinball).  On top of all this _none_ of the utility
software like DFU, or SQL, or ODBC can be used against the file - do you
really want that kind of situation.

DASD is cheap compared to the pain and suffering of the proposed method -
besides - your approach won't use much space anyway!

Jon Paris
Jon.Paris@e400.com

www.e400.com - A new wave of iSeries and AS/400 Education

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