OK you two, Tony and Robin, you are looking at the same thing from two directions, I think.
Robin is saying each element, or structure, or entry, is the same length. The data stored in the element is variable in length. So, Robin is right that you can binary search a table with variable length data, it just so happens each element in the table is the size of the largest, so Tony is right that it is easiest to search a fixed length table. Or, at least that is what I am getting out of all this. Chris Blaicher Principal Software Engineer, Software Development Syncsort Incorporated 50 Tice Boulevard, Woodcliff Lake, NJ 07677 P: 201-930-8260 | M: 512-627-3803 E: cblaic...@syncsort.com -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of robin Sent: Friday, October 25, 2013 7:13 AM To: MVS List Server 2 Subject: Re: Linear search vs binary From: "Tony Thigpen" <t...@vse2pdf.com> Sent: Friday, October 25, 2013 10:05 PM > Convert your PLX code to assembler and you will see that you are > binary searching a pointer table that has fixed length entries. In PL/I , each string value (= each element of an array) occupies exactly the same storage.