[REBOL] Re: structured data for file...
From: greggirwin:mindspring at: 29-Jun-2003 13:13
Hi Denis-Jo,
I moved to REBOL after 11 years as a VB specialist, so it can be done!
:)
The first question is whether you need to support your old data files
or if you just want to know how to persist records to disk in REBOL.
Andrew Martin has a script in hte library called fixed.r that takes
fixed width data and splits it up into REBOL values. The SAVE and LOAD
functions can be used to easily persist data but there is no direct
equivalent in REBOL for VB's random access mode with fixed length
structures. REBOL has no concept of fixed length strings, so even the
struct! datatype that you use to interface to DLLs isn't an *easy*
solution. I didn't say "impossible" because, while I haven't done it,
there might be a way to do it, but at the expense of a little pain and
suffering. :)
I can see writing a dialect that would work like VB's random mode,
except for one particular bug in REBOL (there aren't many, but this
one kills me). You can't skip to random locations in a file that is
open for direct access (i.e. non-buffered). Unless you have really
large data files, buffered access should be just fine. Just load the
data from the file (into a block, hash, etc.), work against that, then
save the entire thing when you're done.
If you can give us more specifics, maybe we can provide more detailed
help.
-- Gregg