On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 5:13 PM, Kurt Anderson
<kurt.anderson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I know we have programs that use [table files]. But it
has to then load the entire table, when I only want two
fields. Honestly I'm not concerned about the speed here.
Well, if you're not concerned about the speed, why are you bothering
with ANY of this? Why not just chain to the file every time you need
it?
If you mean you are concerned about repeated disk I/O but you're not
concerned about the *initial load* speed, then what's the harm in
reading the whole file? You only have to do it the one time right at
the beginning, and from that point on it's in memory.
OK, so it takes more memory than it has to, but then in another
message, you say you're not concerned about the memory usage (because
you're perfectly fine with allocating 100K array elements to store 10K
or 20K, and typically much fewer than that).
So I'm having a hard time figuring out what exactly you don't like
about the table file technique. I'm not saying it's the best
technique in your situation, and you are free to reject the idea on
any grounds whatsoever. You could even say "I don't like table files
because they are too old-school" or "Bob in the next cubicle loves
table files, and he's a total moron with an attitude and I hate his
guts, so I wouldn't be caught dead using his pet technique". Those
things, while not exactly rational, I can actually understand. I
don't understand "I won't use table files because I don't care about
speed and I don't care about memory, except when I do care about
memory".
John
midrange.com
