<HTML><HEAD>
<META charset=US-ASCII http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2737.800" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">
<DIV>While working most of this weekend to correct a problem resulting from a VERY stupid action on my part (a long boring story), I again ran across a needed programming (or maybe system administration) strategy that I wonder how others handle. I will give a simplified illustration.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>If you wanted to post information to records in a file but you wanted to be able to select the record number to which you were posting (i.e. Not just to any free record), how would you do it. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I have occasionally had this need. When starting with an empty file it is no problem. I would just add as many records needed and place an innocent character, like a period, in a field in each record; do my posting; then delete all the records that still only had a period as the only character in the record. As a result, all my records are where they need to be and now empty records are available as free records for the future.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But this weekend I had a complication. I was not starting with an empty file. I had a file in which the highest record number was about 48000 but it had many empty (free) records throughout (resulting from deletions). I needed to be able to post to record numbers up to 51000 as well as to some of the free records in the file. I THOUGHT I could find out how many free records were in the file, and add that number to the difference between 48000 and 51000. Say the number was 5000. I thought I could then write a loop that for 5000 iterations would find a free record in the file and place a period in a field in each record. My assumption was that all of the free records below 48000 would be used as well as the necessary number above 48000. But, to my surprise, SOME of the free records below 48000 were used but most were not. I'm not sure why not. My thought was maybe some of the records were not really "free," but even if I went to a given record number and deleted the record, my above technique did not produce a period character in the record.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>So, my question from all this rambling... What would be the best strategy to create usable records within a file to which one can post by specific record number?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Thanks for any advice for the future.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>-Lee</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>BTW... finally this weekend, I copied the file to another name, deleted key and data files in the original file, created "period" records of sufficient quantity in the original file and then posted back from the new file and posted my needed info all to specific record numbers.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Also... I know that the reason I need to do such a thing is a mistake made many years ago to use record numbers as ID numbers under certain circumstances. I know it is not good programming, but it has not burned me very many times and to change now would not be worth it.</DIV>
<DIV>----------------------------------------</DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">Lee B. Walker<BR>Walker & Company<BR>5307 Front Royal Drive<BR>Cross Lanes, WV 25313<BR>304.419.0013<BR>lee@walkeronline.com</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>