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What are the differences between a serial file and a Multi file in Ab Initio?

Chris Martin
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Polukanti Gouthamkrishna
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3 Answers3

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A serial file will contain the data directly.

However a multi file will contain the partitions in which the data will be contained. Once each of the partitions are opened separately then the data in it will be displayed. We use 'cat' for serial files and 'm_cat' for multi files. However if 'cat' is used to open a multi file it will just show the name of the partition files.

Typically the serial and multi file directories will differ in containing a file called .mdir. The .mdir will contain all the partitions that the multi file system will refer to.

Performance wise multi files will increase speed of execution of a graph since the data will be processed in parallel. However in a serial file the same data will processed in sequence.

Thanks Arijit

Arijit
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A serial file is Just like a normal file system file . Usually under serial paths.

While a "multifile" is a Single file divided into multiple files and kept under different partitions - DATA PARTITIONS ( count of no of data partitions is defined by MFS_DEPTH parmaeter).

If you want to operate on multifile you always do it from its control partition using 'm_' commands. You can 'cd' to where the file resides in Control Partiion and do a 'cat FILENAME.mfctl' and you will get where is your file lies in all the data partition.

Shikhar
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a serial file is a normal file

a multifile is file which is later divided into different partitions and each of the file may be located anywhere the ab initio co operating system is installed the icon for a mutlifile has 3 platters

Ajay metri
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