The FORMAT subcommand

The FORMAT subcommand displays a formatted list of the contents of an index block. Use the FORMAT subcommand if you have read an index block and need to see the all the entries in this block and their RBAs (relative block addresses).

The list contains the following information:

The RBA of the block
The level of the block
The offset to the last entry
The offset to free space
The offset of each entry within the block
The front-end compression count of each entry
The name of each entry (generic names are identified by a G in parentheses after the name)
The last qualifier encode byte of each entry
The RBA of the next-level index block for each entry or, for level-1 blocks, the RBA of the profile

If the block obtained by the READ command is not a valid index block, the request is rejected.

Syntax of the FORMAT subcommand of READ

   FORMAT [OLD|NEW]

where:

OLD: Specifies the original index block obtained by the READ command. OLD is the default.
NEW: Specifies the index block that was updated. NEW is valid only with the READ UPDATE function.