It is not often I post here.  I lurk all the time though.  I have wondered
about blocking factors on the HP.  Many moons ago I read some stuff about
disc I/O & optimum blocking factors.  It was stated that at that time 8192
bytes(8k) disc block sizes were the most efficient and quickest.  So it was
considered optimal to build disc files as close to that clock size as
possible.  To twist it up a bit MPE will read 2 physical/blocks of disc
unless told otherwise with ;buf= parm.  So I presumed the most efficient was
to use half of what was closest to 8k for the number of records per block.
Now I wonder if any of this is still true.  Has it changed with the newer
disc drives?  It does help with serial processing.

Joseph Rosenblatt <[log in to unmask]> wrote in message
news:F4B1826B1A21D211AEC5006008207AF402114B70@dogbert.csillc.com...
> Carl McNamee asked:
> >When using the BUILD command to build a fixed length flat file is there a
> >way to let the system assign the most efficient blocking factor
> >automatically?
>
> Yes, by skipping the Blocking parameter the machine will assign its idea
of
> the best blocking factor. Her is an example:
> :build filea;rec=-10,,f,ascii;disc=100  or build
> fileb;rec=10,,f,binary;disc=100
>
> I hope this helps.
>