Steve Dirickson wonders:

<< I'm a little confused by these responses. We seem to have a number of
people "riding to the rescue" to save the reputation of one database
utility or another, apparently to "defend" it from some putative attack.
Looking back over the thread, I don't see where any claims were made by
anyone that any specific tool does or does not preserve the chronological
sequence of chains on a sort/pack operation. ...>>

Gee, I dunno, maybe your earlier statement:  "Without a sort item, update
activity alone will trash the sequence fairly quickly. A reload/repack will
do so much more thoroughly."

In all fairness though, Steve D. makes many good points.  If one really
wants to preserve at all costs the chronological order of a chain, the old
trick of using a sort item on that chain is definitely in order.

In an earlier post I pondered the impact if IMAGE did not have look
"behind" prefetching when reading down a chain, backward.  I was wondering
if IMAGE might have that capability.  I was informed that IMAGE indeed has
prefetch capabilities when reading backwards.  I would like to get
verification on this issue.

Kind regards,

Denys. . .

Denys Beauchemin
HICOMP America, Inc.
(800) 323-8863  (281) 288-7438         Fax: (281) 355-6879
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