I tend to agree with Denys (not only on this, but with almost everything he
says :)).

Use a large blocksize (2048 springs to mind), and then work out how much is
being "wasted" on each block, divide it evenly by the records.per.block, and
add this as a handy filler to the end of each record in the block, so that
you can use it without a reload whenever you like. It's naughty, but nice,
to have "spare" space for emergency fields, just until you can rebuild or
use Adager or some other tool to name the field properly.

Regards

Neil


Denys postulates.....

It is my contention that you are doing counter-productive things.  There
are only 3 acceptable block sizes in my opinion:  512, 1024 and 2048.  You
will notice that 512 and 1024 are factors of 2048.  MPE/iX is page-based
and a page is 4096 bytes (2048 16-bit words).  When the disk is read, pages
are brought into memory.  By using 512, 1024 or 2048, you are assured that
complete Image blocks are brought in every time.

I would try to minimize wasted space by looking at which of the 3 sizes
reduces wasted space.  I would stay away from odd, but valid sizes, and I
would never grow a block size bigger than 2048, unless there was absolutely
no other way.