--------------------<snip>---------------------
I now see the source of the communications problem, which was
exacerbated by Seymour's predilection to post one-word cryptic replies
or, in the case of his reply to my post, a riddle. The poster wrote
">Just to clarify: size of dir. block is always 256 B". The meaning of
the word "size" depends on whether you mean in virtual storage or stored
on a disk track. In virtual storage, the size of a directory block is
272 bytes (count+key+data), as I described in my previous post. But if
stored on a disk track, it depends on the device type but is always a
lot more than 272, which Seymour had in mind but did not reveal to us.
The word "block" might (correctly) mean to some the entire stored record
(count+key+data) while (incorrectly) only the data area to others. This
confusion has also not been helped by IBM documentation, which sometimes
refers to a DASD block stored on a track as a "block" and at other times
a "record".
-------------------------<unsnip>----------------------
It's always best to consider the audience; I got into the habit of
referring to the 256-byte data portion of the actual record as the
directory block, ignoring the key and count portions, when talking to
application folks. They didn't understand (or want to understand) the
actual details. When talking to people that know, I generally (not
always) prefer to speak of directory entries, leaving out the blocking
details.
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