Synergy counted files are available on Windows and Unix. They are currently only used by the isload and fconvert utilities to safely unload and reload ISAM files that contain binary data (including INTEGER, UNSIGNED, SEQUENCE, TIMESTAMP, and CTIMESTAMP keys). You may decide to unload an ISAM file to a counted file instead of a relative file because with a counted file you don’t need to specify the record size when you reload your ISAM file. For variable-length records containing binary data, we highly recommended you use a counted file.
Counted file structure
A counted file consists of record entries in format of a two-byte (portable integer) record length followed by the record itself. When the record length is odd, a null byte is appended to the record and is discarded when read. A record length of 0xFFFF indicates the end of the file.
Record access
The only access to a counted file is sequentially via isload or fconvert. The file type /COUNTED is required when specifying the file in isload, and the -c option is required when specifying the file using fconvert.
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Files created with record sizes greater than 64K cannot be counted files. |
Input and output statements
There are currently no I/O statements in the language to directly read or write records in a counted file.
