In message
<[log in to unmask]>, Tony
Summers <[log in to unmask]> writes
>I don't know the precise answer, but when I first started working on our
>KSAM database (10+ years ago) I asked why every file had two slack bytes
>at the FRONT of every record.   Someone explained that CM ksam used
>these two bytes to mark deleted records.  I've never bothered to
>challenge this standard at my firm - although I have always wondered why
>you would want to read deleted records anyway.

You don't - that's why they have to be marked :-)

 As CM KSAM wasn't able to dynamically restructure the Data file from
its KSAM file pair, nor to handle the deletion, logically or otherwise,
in the Key file, with its BTREE structure...
--
Roy Brown        'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be
Kelmscott Ltd     useful, or believe to be beautiful'  William Morris

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