A row or record buffer is a block of memory allocated in the program to hold the current row for a table. Access functions such as KISAMReadKey and KISAMReadNext are passed a pointer to this buffer fetch the required row from the table copying it into the table. Similarly other functions such as KISAMWrite and KISAMUpdate are given a record buffer pointer as an argument and the contents of that buffer are written to the disk. Thus these functions operate on entire rows at once. KISAM, in co-operation with the operating system, takes care of all buffering into physical blocks.