In the field of mathematics there is a very useful tool called "Proof By Contradiction". You assume the converse of what you want to prove and then demonstrate that this leads to a logical contradiction. If your chain of logic is impeccably correct, then your initial assumption must have been wrong; thus demonstrating that its converse (the statement you wanted to prove in the first place) is true. Often this is an easier approach than a flat-out straight-on proof of the correctness of your original theorem.

There are a couple of possibilities that I see here:

  1. The assumption about a constant physical block-size of the data is in error.
  2. The 'constant block-size' refers to the number of records composing an entry ('every patient will have the following sixteen pieces of information'), but the lengths of the individual records can vary ('fields that do not have data will be entered as a single blank or zero').
I'd bet that further discussion with the User/Designer of the input will be most instructive. ("Why, yes, we said that the block-size was constant. It isn't? Hum, you have uncovered a bug. Don't do anything more with the data until we can check this out.")

----
I Go Back to Sleep, Now.

OGB

In reply to Re: Unexpected File Results by Old_Gray_Bear
in thread Unexpected File Results by Grundle

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