My Vsam file contains no records .
This may be accurate, but it is completely nonresponsive. A VSAM (note that VSAM is an acronym and should be capitalized in English) file that has no records either (1) has never had any records, or (2) had at least one record that was deleted. For case (1), you must use IDCAMS to do a LISTCAT command on the data set and parse the output looking for the record count -- or use a similar method using the product of your choice -- since you absolutely, positively cannot open the file for input to count the records. For case (2), you can use the utility of your choice to copy the file to a DUMMY data set and get the count of copied records.