providex.dde - null records?

[PMM_CAI]

We're currently using PxP 15.10 for our inhouse development. But we've been using the product since the days of ProvideX. That includes the Data Dictionary. Has anyone else noticed that in providex.dde, there is sometimes a record that has just the 6-digit serial # in the key -- i.e. no 6-digit sequence number making up the rest of the key -- at the front of a serial file's .dde records. And the iolist is null. Was there a time when, say, ProvideX used to instantiate one of these (header-like??) recs when writing .dde recs? Or are they just symptoms from a hiccough that might have occurred during a DD Maint process? We don't have them for all our serial #s; only some.

I also am wondering whether it's safe to delete them. For now, we're leaving them alone. Thanks!

Paula McKeever
CAI Software, LLC

[Jane Raymond]

Paula,
These records have flags for files with external keys.

[PMM_CAI]

Hmm, we rarely use external keyed files here, but even for one that I'm familiar with in our package, the DDE rec that has just the 6-digit DDF key has nothing in the iolist; each element in that DDE rec appears to be null.