Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!decwrl!lll-winken!sun-barr!newstop!sun!jasonf
From: jasonf@cetemp.Eng.Sun.COM (Jason Freund)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: I/O with complex datastructures
Keywords: I/O datastructures save
Message-ID: <140232@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 6 Aug 90 18:20:24 GMT
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Lines: 25


	I've never dealt with file I/O in Pascal and I have a question
about saving a complex datastructure.  Basically, I have a single, very
complex datastructure that holds just about all of the information in my
program.  I want to save all of its data into a file so that I can load
it back up when the program's user wants to change some info in the database.
I was considering C until I learned that to do this, I would have to create my
own file format and step through each cell of the structure using getc/putc to
rewrite the data each time I wanted to modify it.  That would be impractical
for the complexity of my data.
	I was skimming through the Pascal book and it seems like there is some
way you can use reset/rewrite to save all data in a datastructure for reading
in later.  Is that right?  Could someone give me a simple example of how to
automatically save a piece of complex data (ie. a record w/ 2+ fields, any 
recursive structures, etc).  Are there any limitations/disadvantages to this?

Thanks,
Jason Freund, Sun Microsystems,  jasonf@cetemp.Corp.sun.com  <== summer address
Deprtmnt of Computer Science, Univ California, Davis. freund@sakura.ucdavis.edu
Quantum Link: JasonF5,  Compu$erve: 72007,244, 690 Erie Dr, Sunnyvale, CA 94087
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STOLEN QUOTES -- Please give the authors credit if you know who they are!    
"To understand recursion, you need to understand recursion."
"Wow!  Virtual memory!  Now I'm gonna build me a REALLY big ram disk!"
"My other computer is a SUN3/50."  "E. Pluribus UNIX"   -- authors unkown