Re: logical and physical size

In article <5n48j5$9oe@cssun.mathcs.emory.edu>, acustaf!clee@acustaf.acustaf.com (Chengteh Lee) wrote: >Hi: > >I have a table growing really big and I try to >delete some of the records. >After I delete records, the physical size of the >table doesn't reduce as we expect. Do I need >to use informix command to reduce the physical size? >How? > >Thanks! > Deleted space in SE or ONLINE is not released by informix until the table is re-clustered (by creating a CLUSTER INDEX or altering and existing index to CLUSTER) or by unloading, dropping, recreating and reloading information. However, the space released by a delete is available for use and informix will use that space for records inserted subsequently into that same table before allocating new space to that tblspace or .dat file. In other words, what you will see in your case is as follows. 1. Delete rows from table : Size of .dat file does NOT change. 2. Start inserting rows into same table : Size of .dat file still does NOT change. 3. Number of rows inserted (after the delete) exceeds the number of rows deleted : Size of .dat file starts increasing HTH. ----------------------- Rudy Fernandes GIC, Kuwait OL 7.20UC4, 4GL 6.04UC1 -----------------------