Subject Re: Append problem xdml From Akshat Kapoor <akshat.kapoor@kapoorsons.in> Date Sun, 8 Nov 2020 22:38:46 +0530 Newsgroups dbase.getting-started Good Evening Charlie, > Hi Akshat...   I am the original programmer and originally wrote the original code in dos in I believe the late 80's  In 2016 took around 6 moths to change this over to mainly oodml but I left some of the original program in xdml which I am more familiar with although I have learned a lot about oodml.   Even so I still code many of my scrips in xdml which I will argue is easier to do and run better at least for me. (.prg only.) There was a time when I would have opted for prg but now I have moved over to RDBMS and hence cannot opt for that. OODML with full sql support is much more powerful and easy. > > All I am asking is for a reason why the size of the table is changing.  This has stumped me, but there has to be a reason and I hope someone might be able to point me in the right direction to figure this out. I have never analysed this before With the structure of dbf tables I am aware of (very limited knowledge) size of tables should not alter till there are one or more of the following reasons 1. Append of rows 2. Packing of table Deletion of rows should not effect size as the byte denoting deletion is already there it has to be turned on/off. All fields have fixed length and their space is reserved. What i do not know is how nulls are treated. Check the number of nulls in the columns you are updating before and after the update. Does the size change correspond to diff in number of rows x size of field. On an experimental basis try deleting or recalling a row. Does it cause a change of size when the table is closed. Apart from the above I have no idea what is causing the change. At times refreshing the windows explorer may also display the current size. The data may be stale and not being upto date. Regards Akshat