Free Disk Necessary To Retructure A File

[Kenneth Brody]

Quoting Bob Stockler (Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:01:53 -0400):

> Ken Brody wrote (on Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 04:35:53PM -0400):
[...]
> | >Could not the shrinking filePro program have been written to
> | >write the shortened records starting at the beginning of the
> | >existing key file, then write free records to the balance of
> | >the space occupied by the file?  This would result, according
> | >to how much the records were being shortened, in it being just
> | >a few bytes larger than it originally was.
> |
> | What about all the records that will also be added to the other segment?
> | (ie: the data segment if modifying fields in key.)
>
> Well, if anyone still uses a data segement, the same apply to it.
> It would result in the data segment being perhaps a few bytes longer.

Consider this scenario:

     File has 100,000 records.
     Key record length is 1K.
     Data record length is 5K.

You shrink the key record by 5 bytes.  This means that you need to add
500 records to keep the key file the same size.  That also means that
the data segment will increase by 2.5MB.  (Not much in today's terms,
but hardly "a few bytes".)

> It all depends on whether there was, or was not, a data segement,
> and where the fields being shortened or eliminated existed.
>
> I can envision this being used much more (if at all, ever) anyway.

I assume you mean "can't"?

[...]

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