"The key file uses more space than it needs..."

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 11:31:52AM -0500, Kenneth Brody wrote:
> Quoting Jay R. Ashworth (Mon, 5 Mar 2007 11:22:11 -0500):
> > "...should I shrink the file?".
> >
> > So... if you say *no*, how does filepro know where the field boundaries
> > are?
> 
> The same way it always knows -- the field boundaries are between every
> field, just as before.  Any unused space is at the end of the record.

IOW: it does restructure *records*, regardless of how you answer that
question.

> [...]
> > Alternatively, if it restructures every record so that the intra-record
> > offsets match the new layout, where does it cache the "real" record
> > length (as opposed to the total of the current field lengths)?
> 
> It's in the map file, where it's always been:
> 
>     http://www.fptech.com/Products/Docs/FPFormat/ftmap.shtml

IOW: SUM(fieldlen(*)) != reclen.

Yeah, that makes sense.

This bit of filePro pedagogy brought to you by Captain Obvious and the
ClueBat.  :-)

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
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