Re: is there a way to recover deleted records ?

The reason you can retrieve deleted records is that when your program "deletes" a record, the operating system merely flags that record as "deleted." That's why DSPFD has totals for "number of records" and "number of deleted records." Until you reorganize that file, the deleted record count will continue to climb.

When you save the file (SAVOBJ or SAVLIB), the saved object includes both the active records and those flagged as deleted.

Now comes the fun part!

Save the file with the deleted records to a SAVF.

You can read a SAVF in RPG. Define a file (I believe it's 528 bytes-- DSPFD for the save file and check) and use it in your program.

As you read the file, there's some header information, followed by your data. Yes, it doesn't line up with the record boundaries, and you've got to deal with packed and binary and date fields, but your records are all there! You can even find the flag that the system uses to mark deleted records.

It's left as an exercise for the student to unwind the spanned records and copy them to a new file with the deleted records restored.

Isn't there an option when dealing with files in the IFS to tell the transfer commands what the record length is? If so, a copy out and back may re-align the records...

-Paul E Musselman
PaulMmn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx