Good afternoon HP3000 users,
I have been thinking on improving our system performance by load balancing
between two message files.  Currently, a single process will read a single
message file, process the transaction, then switch a flag.  This flag switch
will then instruct the program to read the other message file in its while
loop.  It will continue to switch back and forth.  However, The first
message file will account for 80% of the transactions while the second
message file the other 20%.

Is there a smart way to determine which message file to read based on need?
Can I determine which message file has more records and read that message
file?   I could probably configure the while loop to read the message files
on an 8 to 2 basis.  However, at different times of the day, the second
message file produces spirts of activity and at other times no activity.  I
sure hate to perform a read when there are no records when I could perform a
read on the first message file.

The program is in PASCAL if that matters.

Any suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks.....