Re: File/data structure information
- From: Logan Shaw <lshaw-usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2006 23:47:10 -0600
Dave wrote:
I have been Googling to find information about the pros and cons of different file and data structures within a file incl. databases). Would a appreciate a pointer to either some online documents or a good primer text. I don't have any specific questions and the information needs to be language and operating system agnostic.
The applications are for storing/finding strings, strings within strings, numerical data, etc. In other words, very general.
Just about any data structure you put in RAM can also be put inside
a file. Well, any, really. B-trees can go in files or in RAM, and
so can hash tables, and so can arrays with fixed-size elements, and
so can just about any other data structure you can think of, like
linked lists, PATRICIA trees, hashes, or whatever.
The only big difference is that access within a file is slower,
especially when moving from one part of a file to another, so
maintaining locality of reference is extra important if you are
concerned about performance. That concern exists (in modern
computers) with RAM too, because of the various levels of caches,
but it's more important with disks.
Of course, I'm assuming here that your files are on disk. They
might not be. In the old days, it would have been quite possibly
they were on tape. In current times, it's quite possible they're
on a flash, which doesn't have significant seek time, but which
does have slow writes.
- Logan
.
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