Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!dsinc!netnews.upenn.edu!vax1.cc.lehigh.edu!cert.sei.cmu.edu!krvw From: padgett%tccslr.dnet@mmc.com (Padgett Peterson) Newsgroups: comp.virus Subject: re: VIRUSSUM format (PC) Message-ID: <0004.9105201353.AA06044@ubu.cert.sei.cmu.edu> Date: 17 May 91 16:09:43 GMT Sender: Virus Discussion List Lines: 32 Approved: krvw@sei.cmu.edu >From: kuhnle@ait.physik.uni-tuebingen.de (Volkmar Kuhnle) >But over the months al lot of new viruses (and strains of existing ones) >have been uncovered, so that VIRUSSUM.DOC grew in size. Since the >current version is about more than 500 K in length, is is getting >harder and harder to find informations about a special virus in >a file of this size, since I have to use a normal editor. The 9104 version is in excess of 600k now something I have commumicated with Patricia about since last year. For the short term, Vern Bureg's (sp?) excellent shareware LIST facility can handle it easily plus provide search facilities to find certain occurances. For editing, my WordStar has no problem (very good for translating DEBUG to source code too - plug) with large files. At one point last year I tried some simple reformatting & whitespace elimination that reduced VSUM from 500k to around 300k without changing the format. I also suggested page breaks at each virus to fit into a loose- leaf folder and allow monthly updates so that the whole thing only had to be downloaded once. My suspician is that the original version was done on an IBM mainframe (used to be sorted in EBCDIC order) However since it is copyrighted material, such forms cannot be distributed without permission. The problem with a .DBF format is that not everyone can read it. For that reason my preference is for flat ASCII files, these can even be put onto a mainframe if desired. There are a number of flat-file databases available & is the reason I reformatted VSUM for Patti last May to have consistant column boundaries & charactoristic formats. There is no question that VSUM could be made much smaller without losing any functionality, the .ZIP ratio gives a good indication of that.