Re: Use of VARYING fields

[Charles Wilt <charles.wilt@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 5:13 AM, David FOXWELL <David.FOXWELL@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> This has turned into a brilliant thread and I thank all the contributers.
>
> I have been living in complete ignorance and did not know anything about how such data would be stored in a PF.
>
> After having read up, I have a couple of questions. If you don't care about space saving, can't you just code the maximum and
> allocated length as the same?

Yes.  In that case, you're simply using varying for the string
handling benefits.

> How is space saved? I mean, if the allocated length is 0 and all the rows are in the overflow space, where is this space?

--Basically--
The data is still in the *FILE object, the difference is that it is in
the overflow space of the object instead of the regular data space.
The regular data space is fixed format.  The overflow space is not.

Examples:
Fld1    10a
Fld2  200a
data space per record: 210   overflowspace per record: 0

Fld1    10a
Fld2  200a   varying(0)
data space per record: 10 + some overhead   overflowspace per record: 0-200

Fld1    10a
Fld2  200a   varying(50)
data space per record: 60 + some overhead   overflowspace per record: 0-150

Make sense?

Charles Wilt