Re: casefile random access

[John Darrington]

On Wed, Jun 07, 2006 at 09:45:23PM -0700, Ben Pfaff wrote:
     It is possible, but nontrivial, to fix casefiles to solve both of
     these problems.
     
     Cases could be inserted by adding a second file and reading its
     data partway through the middle of the first one; some kind of
     index would be necessary.  Deleting cases is simpler; you just
     arrange to ignore the ones that are deleted.  

I was thinking of something similar.  The index is the tricky bit.
Seeking is also complicated.  If I insert a case before case #10, and
another before case #30.  Then to find case 40, I actually have to
index the casefile with 42, and to find case 20 I have to use the
index 21 etc.   My idea was a binary tree which stores pointers to the
inserted cases, and keeps a record of how many cases have been
inserted where. 

     If this sort of
     thing is taken to its logical extreme, you end up with a database
     system like Berkeley DB's Recno access method.

I'm not familiar with that.
     
     Variables could be inserted by adding a second file and reading
     it in parallel with the first one.  To delete a variable, ignore
     that data as you read it.

Again, there'd also be the problem of mapping the old  indeces to the
new (casefile, index) pairs.
     
     How important is it to solve these problems at the casefile
     level?

I don't know at this stage.  Maybe a higher level would be more
appropriate.   Anyway, I'll try to get the sheet scrolling properly
with a single casefile, and perhaps temporarily drop the ability to
insert and delete.

J'

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