Should text fields be padded with blanks and numeric fields be padded with zeros to there maximum length?
No, the record layouts, although they list a maximum length that we will except, were designed to be variable length. No text field should be blank or space padded on either the right or left and the numeric fields should not be zero padded to the left of a value. If this is done, it can cause your transfer rate to slow down, even though the file is compressed there is still space used to represent the blanks, spaces and zeros and in a large data file this additional space could be substantial enough to lengthen the transfer time. Also, if the three fields to be encrypted have been blank/space padded then the encryption routine may fail (if the whole field is blank) or may not properly encrypt the value. Please refer to the Encryption section of this page for specifics.
