# OPEN: BUFFERCOUNT Specifier

The BUFFERCOUNT specifier indicates the number of buffers to be associated with the unit for multibuffered I/O. It takes the following form:

BUFFERCOUNT = bc

bc | Is a scalar numeric expression in the range 1 through 127. If necessary, the value is converted to integer data type before use.

The BLOCKSIZE specifier determines the size of each buffer. For example, if BUFFERCOUNT=3 and BLOCKSIZE=2048, the total number of bytes allocated for buffers is 3*2048, or 6144 bytes.

If you do not specify BUFFERCOUNT or you specify zero for bc, the default is 1.

Parent topic: OPEN Statement Specifiers

## See Also

BLOCKSIZE specifier