Have OS/400 notify you when a file contains more than a certain number of deleted records

If you don't want to change your file to reuse deleted records, you can set the file up so that OS/400 tells you when the deleted records in a file member exceeds a certain percentage of the total records in that member. So if you wanted OS/400 to tell you when the deleted records in a member exceeded 25 percent of the total records in the file member, you would change the Max % deleted records parameter (DLTPCT) with a CHGPF command in this way:
CHGPF FILE(LIBRARYNAME/FILENAME) DLTPCT(25)
This change takes effect the next time the file is opened and closed. You can select any percentage between 1 and 100 percent, or you can set this parameter to *NONE (no tracking). When the number of deleted records pass the file target percentage, OS/400 will send a message to the system history log (QHST) that the file has reached its limit (OS/400 checks the percentage whenever the file is closed). This is an informational message only, but if you're using a messaging product like Bytware's MessengerPlus that is able to monitor the history log, you can have OS/400 page you when the file needs to be cleared or reorganized.