The fixed vs variable debate really has more to done with how each application is constructed and the type of data. Some types of data just cannot be used as delimited data (i.e. binary, or where the delimiter is part of the data).
Here's how I see things:
(1) Fixed format data: means that the sender has more work to done than the receiver. (i.e. padding fields with blanks or zero, aligning the data within the field, etc...
(2) Variable length data means that you will need a delimiter to separate the "records". Therefore, lets just call it "delimited data". Generally speaking, it is easier for the sender to construct the delimited data, where as the receiver will be required to parse / tokenize the incoming data and separate the data into its respective fields.
Because fixed formatted data has padding characters, it is generally longer than if you had made the data variable format.
Hope that helps.
Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Enterprise Architect
Capitalware Inc.
At 10:35 AM 7/28/2003, you wrote:
A quick question as a rule, is it significantly more efficient to specify variable messages as opposed to fixed in one app, even though we are moving variable length messages, were specifying fixed. Just looking for some quick opinions.
Thanks in advance,
DW
