What are the advantages and disadvantages of using fixed length records?

Fixed Length: Advantage: Simple to calculate the starting byte of each record within the file and starting byte of fields within records. Disadvantage: Wasteful of space when storing variable length data because the max data length must be allocated for every record e.g. Strings.

What are the disadvantages of fixed length record of string type data?

The perceived disadvantage of fixed extents is periodic full extent management. As more fixed extents are added to the database, the total number of file handles being consumed may become an issue, using fewer larger extents rather than more smaller controls file handle consumption.

What are the advantages of fixed length instructions?

The advantages of fixed length instructions with a relatively uniform formatting is that fetching and parsing the instructions is substantially simpler.

What is disadvantage of fixed length instruction format?

It wastes memory which requires padding the shorter instructions so as to make it of fixed length. The program needs more memory at the time of execution of the instruction and also requires larger time to load from the secondary memory.

What are 2 problems that you can have with fixed length records?

However, there are two problems with this approach. It is difficult to delete a record from this structure. Space occupied must somehow be deleted, or we need to mark deleted records so that they can be ignored. Unless block size is a multiple of 40, some records will cross block boundaries.

What is the advantage of variable length records over fixed?

The main advantages of variable over fixed length fields or records are: A variable length field can store an item no matter how long it is. There is less wastage of space.

Does CISC have fixed length instructions?

Fixed length (RISC) vs variable length (CISC) instructions. Some computer CPUs use a fixed length instruction encoding format.

What is an important disadvantage of variable length instructions?

Disadvantages of variable length instruction format: Processor complexity depends on instruction length. Variable length instruction format does not remove desirability of instruction length which is integrally related to word length.

What is fixed length instruction?

Fixed length (RISC) instructions Some computer CPUs use a fixed length instruction encoding format. That means: Every computer instruction is represented using the same number of bytes.

What is the difference between fixed length and variable length?

Variable length encoding scheme uses different number of bytes or octets (set of 8 bits) to represent different characters whereas fixed length encoding scheme uses a fixed number of bytes to represent different characters.

What are the two problems in fixed length records and what is the solution?

Fixed-Length Records Due to the fixed size there occurs following two problems: Partially storing subparts of the record in more than one block requires access to all the blocks containing the subparts to read or write in it. It is difficult to delete a record in such a file organization.

What are fixed length records?

In fixed-length or fixed-format records, each field starts and ends at the same place in every record. A data file that contains data records of equal and constant length might be organized as follows. When you define a fixed-length format, you specify the length of each field. …

What are the advantages and disadvantages of fixed length in?

• It wastes memory which requires padding the shorter instructions so as to make it of fixed length. • The program needs more memory at the time of execution of the instruction and also requires larger time to load from the secondary memory. Chapter 4, Problem 4RQ is solved.

What’s the difference between variable and fixed length records?

Fixed versus Variable-length Records. Variable-length data files are created with a defined minimum record length. The minimum record length specifies the smallest data record that will be added to the file. Conceptually, this minimum record length corresponds to the fixed-length fields that may be part of your record structure.

How big is a fixed length data file?

Fixed length data files can be created with record lengths in the range from 5 bytes to 65,535 bytes. Variable-length data files are created with a defined minimum record length.

Can a variable length file be changed in filmod?

When creating a data file, filmod specifies whether the data records are fixed-length or variable-length. Once a data file is created, its record-length characteristics cannot be changed (i.e. ctFIXED or ctVLENGTH file mode and fixed-length size). The remaining variable-length portions of the record are truly dynamic.