A direct access database system

[sarossell]

This is astonishing. Believe what you want. I tried to be humble and acquiesce to presumed offense in an effort to keep things civil, but you are by far the most idiotic infant I have ever had the displeasure of coming across. I don't give a flying rats ass about your code or even the database code. Frankly, I can honestly admit I didn't fully understand it and found it far too complex for my needs anyway. I had no intention of ever even using the code! But you go ahead and posture and stomp your feet like the petulant child you obviously are and I'll just go about my business and ignore your little tantrums. My god man, my thirteen year old daughter has more maturity in her little finger than you have in your entire existence. Congratulations, you've sparked my ire and contempt. Big whoop. That and some mediocre code are the peak of your accomplishments. As for my retorts, I will no longer continue this kindergarten banter and I apologize to the rest of the forum for having exposed a deplorable coward and then condescended to trade words with the insufferable moron. I should know better than to be baited by a paranoid troll. Please, by all means, rbait...sorry, rbytes (you poor, deluded, anonymous, pansy) feel free to have the last word. In fact, why don't you be a complete panty-waist and lodge a complaint. Anything...ANYTHING but apologize for being such an incredible waste of sh.........

[rbytes]

Khhgh

[Henko]

Wow, an old fashioned, BBS-like, flame war!
Just for the other forum members:
It appeared that i ended the cooperation with mr. rbytes rather bluntly, but that is not the case. We have had an email contact in the meantime explaining things and we go on as usual.
I read the last 2 postings of mr. sarossell. Amazing, how a person can tell the same thing in like twenty different phrases. Such posts do not belong in this forum. They add nothing.
Merry christmass to everybody, don't eat too much. See you around.

[Mr. Kibernetik]

There is no need to argue with anybody, because usually it affects nothing.
A forum-style communication has an advantage - you can safely ignore those posts which you don't like without losing your face. But participating in a quarrell is a right way to spoil an attitude.
So I suggest to stay on topic - this is more productive.

[rbytes]

Good advice - thanks.

[basiccode]

Or are you just trying to drive from the back seat, get others to do the work, and get some usable programs with no effort on your part? I hope you realize how that may be perceived by those of us who spend long hours developing our code.

I kinda have not seen any usable code of any usefulness on this site yet sorry to say, Seriously, I've even waited for like a couple of years and still NOTHING!!. What's more important tho rbytes and Henko, If you don't have the skills to help other members then Don't Try, leave it to us who have more experience in that kind of thing but by the looks of it we are going to have to write all the useful programs as well!! Ain't!?.

I don't want to see you two guys upsetting other members again.

[rbytes]

The first public version of Datamine is now posted. Comments and bug reports are appreciated.

[rbytes]

Bring on the great programs, basiccode. I can't wait!

[Mr. Kibernetik]

I warn everybody: please stay on topic and avoid offending anybody on the Forum.
Next time I see something like "idiot", "troll" or any other attempts to offend anyone, I will delete this user without consideration whether he was right or wrong. Because on this Forum he will be definitely wrong.

[GeorgeMcGinn]

Most direct access file systems do not do a hard delete of a record. Instead the record is removed from the key.

On the mainframe with VSAM, you have the ability to recover lost records this way. That is until a new record overwrites that slot.

VSAM works by creating record buffers, and your record is placed logically in the file. The physical file has no gaps, per se. But the key file does. This allows you to insert records and keep them in key order. The VSAM system does a best guess as to which buffer or group of keys to insert the record.

However, when running a program that does a mass load of records, you wind up with buffer splits, and this can either slow down your direct access or even corrupt the keyfile. Then you run a utility to rebuild the key from the records in the file.

Here we do not have to write that complicated a direct access file system, but if you decide to create and use a keyfile that holds the address of the record (in SmartBASIC, that would be the number of bytes to read to get to the record), you would need a way to insert keys so that file stays in order. Otherwise access to the file will be slow.

Just some information if you decide that a keyfile, if there is a possibility of working with large files, is a better and faster way to do a direct access to your record.

I am working on a program that reads in a file that holds voter registration data for 380,000 records, and 1.2 million voting history data, so in this case, I would need to create a key index file to help me access my records much faster. However, when I implement this App, the Florida State database is North of 10 million voter records, and more than 20 million voting history records.

When I do write this, I will share it here with the group, as key access is faster and better when accessing a file directly.

George.

I uncommented various functions and tried them. Got expected results for most. A surprise when I deleted Carter. When I looked at testdb afterward, most of Carter's record was still there. The key had been shortened to "er", but the fields were not deleted:

er
Lydia Carter sales 36 3300

Is this your intent?

I tried add_rec, but got an error message. I assumed I could format it as add_rec("Flintstone", "Fred Flintstone delivery 42 4400") but got an error. Could you please include an example for add_rec in the next posting? Thanks.

I will start to build an interface to make full use of all of the functions.

Congratulations - this will be a very useful program.

When deleting a record, the slot where it resides is merely marked as empty, is is not necessary to entirely erase it. After deletion, use the function db-dump() to display the actual content of the DB.
I copy/pasted your add_rec statement from here into the testcode (main), but got no error. Fred is nicely added into slot 4. See the dump result.