Date Field block size

[Tony Carolla <carolla@xxxxxxxxx>]

Okay, first off,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!  May the holiday spirit hit you like a model B50 falling
off a loading dock ;-)

I have a question.  I am trying to calculate the optimum block size to use
with OVRDBF SEQONLY(YES XXXX), for an input file from which I will read all
records.  The file contains the following layout:

FMACRO  3A
FMNUM  9P 0
FMUPDAT  L

DSPFD indicates that the record length is 18.  Now, I know once I READ, the
field that will be created to represent FMUPDAT is a length 10 (ISO) field.
But on disk, it is a four-byte field.  So my question is this:  My
understanding is that a size of I/O from disk is 128K.  If this is to be
read directly from disk, into the buffer when the READ op executes, will
there be a need for ten bytes to store this field?  I know that the single
variable inside the program will never see that four-byte value directly,
but why would a disk buffer need to know anything else other than the four
bytes?

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