PADCOMPRESS= Table Option

Specifies the number of bytes to add to compressed blocks in an SPD Engine data set that is opened for OUTPUT or UPDATE.

Category: Table Control
Data source: SPD Engine data set

Syntax

PADCOMPRESS= n

Arguments

n

specifies the number of bytes to add. The default number is 0 (zero).

Details

Compressed SPD Engine data sets occupy blocks of space on the disk. The size of a block is derived from the IOBLOCKSIZE= table option that is specified when the data set is created. When the data set is updated, a new block fragment might need to be created to hold the update. More updates might then create new fragments, which, in turn, increases the number of I/O operations needed to read a data set.
By increasing the block padding in certain situations where many updates to the data set are expected, fragmentation can be kept to a minimum. However, adding padding can waste space if you do not update the data set.
You must weigh the cost of padding all compression blocks against the cost of possible fragmentation of some compression blocks.
Specifying the PADCOMPRESS= table option when you create or update a data set adds space to all of the blocks as they are written back to the disk. The PADCOMPRESS= setting is not retained in the data set's metadata.
Last updated: February 23, 2017