No. of lines in a tape file

isnehil · New User Joined: 10 Oct 2007 Posts: 23 Location: mumbai

Hi all,

Can any one please suggest me any way of knowing the number of records in a TAPE file..

Please suggest...

Thanks,

~ Snehil

expat · Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 3:05 pm

Search the forum, this has been discussed many times.

isnehil · New User Joined: 10 Oct 2007 Posts: 23 Location: mumbai

Hi expat,

I searched thru the forum, but couldn't find a satisfactory thread....

I want to read TAPE files thru REXX only... my team has been using DFSORT/ICETOOL for the same....

Is there any way thru which I can get the record count of the tape file without submitting a job..

please advise.... thanks again..

~ Snehil

enrico-sorichetti · Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 3:32 pm

look at the tape management system commands

but why use rexx when sort will outperform by a factor of 5

isnehil · New User Joined: 10 Oct 2007 Posts: 23 Location: mumbai

Hi enrico.... thanx 4 ur reply....

my requirement is to find only the record count of TAPE file...

My team uses DFSORT to do so...which consumes long time for files with millions of records...

so... I am searching for some faster way to get the record count thru REXX if possible..

can you please give me links or any relevant info regarding how to do this using TMS or any other way...

your suggestion wud be helpful..

thanks,

~Snehil

expat · Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 4:37 pm

Go talk to your storage people, they probably produce a report with what you want

Bill Dennis · Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 6:22 pm

As your team discovered already, the only accurate method is to read and count the records. And, yes, this is a waste of resources.

The best solution is for the creating job to display the EOJ counts of each file for later reference. Otherwise, if your tape management system can give block count, you can approximate the number based on (average?) records per block * BLKCOUNT.

Frank Yaeger · Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 8:37 pm

dick scherrer · Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 10:32 pm

Hello,

If the process that creates the tape has no need to create the record count and put it somewhere, why do you need to later re-read the entire file to merely count records? Is there any business requirement for this?

If the count has any importance, i'd suggest it be created/stored when the file is written.

As was mentioned, your tape management system should be able to get you the approximate number of records (if not the exact count).

My guess is that if some process needs the data on the tape, it will read all of the records regardless of how many records are on the tape. . .