Hi all,
 
I was just reading the new SMUG book (which now seems to have disappeared
from my desk...hot material!), and found a section that discussed how
many extents a file can have.  I wasn't willing to accept the "conjecture"
made by the person they referenced (me) so I thought I'd do a test...
 
I started a test program yesterday, that loops:
 
   fopen (file, append)         (the file's reccord size is 4096 bytes)
   fwrite
   fclose (fid, %20, 0)         (close, release extra space (if any),
                                 without changing the LIMIT)
 
Each iteration allocates another extent.
 
It's now about 24 hours later, and the file has 110,731 extents,
and is continuing to grow (about 1 extent per second):
 
A LISTFILE ,3 shows:
 
FILE CODE : 0                   FOPTIONS: BINARY,FIXED,NOCCTL,STD
BLK FACTOR: 1                   CREATOR : **
REC SIZE: 4096(BYTES)           LOCKWORD: **
BLK SIZE: 4096(BYTES)           SECURITY--READ    : ANY
EXT SIZE: 0(SECT)                         WRITE   : ANY
NUM REC: 110731                           APPEND  : ANY
NUM SEC: 1771696                          LOCK    : ANY
NUM EXT: 110731                           EXECUTE : ANY
         ^^^^^^
 
Note: FFILEINFO item #44 incorrectly returns the bottom 16 bits of
the number of extents and no error or warning.
 
The book is available from Robelle Consulting Ltd, info at:
   http://www.robelle.com/smugbook/
 
Stan (no, the test machine didn't have anything better to do) Sieler