Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!uunet!blkcat!Uucp
From: Ken.Knight@f421.n109.z1.FidoNet.Org (Ken Knight)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: Simulating arrays (Of tickboxes)
Message-ID: <674217627.0@blkcat.FidoNet>
Date: 14 May 91 04:09:18 GMT
Sender: Uucp@p0.f40.n109.z1.FidoNet.Org
Lines: 36

to: jkc@Apple.COM 
What extension to the read command have been implemented in HC 2.1? One
thing I've been involved with is a stack that I helped create that lets
you read/reply/write mail offline. It is overall a fine stack, but it
is terribly slow in the initial importation of messages from a file.
The file follows a nice standard format that looks something like:
MSG #: 1234     Sent: May 12 1991 18:50:12 Area: Comp.Sys.Mac.Hype
[message text]
<Return>
Msg #: 12345
 
Well you get the idea. This takes a while to parse apart. Especially
when reading in the message text since you do a Read until RETURN and
then a check for "MSG #:". Slow. I'm working on implementing a fastread
external that'll speed such reads to keys up. The idea being to use a
Boyer-Moore search algorthim that should reduce search times
considerably. For example, the average message runs about 20-25 lines
so you pass through the inner loops 20-25 times (and HC's read is doing
a linear search to find each return - call that 75 characters on
average per line to check). My XFCN would reduce that from this
linear-based time to something on the order of, hopefully, M/N-time
(M=size of string being worked on; the message; N is the key length).
But, if something like this is coming for READ I could drop the
project. Is something like this coming: a read to keystring; which is
FAST (not your average brute-force search for keystring)?
 
Sorry, to be so long winded, but this is of interest to me since
OffLine is gathering some competition in some respects (and the irony
is I'm helping beta test the product), but the competition is not as
refined where Internet is concerned (but is much faster). I want to
remedy this.
 
  ** Ken **


 * Origin: Twilight Clone - Macintosh Files Board - 301-946-8677