Ye Gods! My condolences. :-(

Well...hmmmm. My thoughts all go to breaking your file up into chunks. I mean, on the face of it, you've got a system where your data source drops 6GB files and actually expects someone to use them. But if you can't get Perl installed easily, you're probably not in a position to re-engineer your company's processes ("Excuse me sir, I think I'm smarter than you and...what's that?...yes, I like working here...oh...sorry...").

So, for a chunk-wise example, you can use sysread() to read a monster text file (perhaps this one) in smallish chunks (512k, 4MB, whatever). You write a function like get_next_chunk() that manages the chunk-reading as needed, finding the start and end of the current "record", as defined by you. Then you write your main function with a while(get_next_record()){} loop, and it never has to know about sysread() or chunks at all.

So now you abstract this a bit further. In some pre-process, you break your data into chunks (size dependent on memory and performance) and zip them separately. Then your get_next_record() function uses Archive::Zip or IO::Compress to read and decompress each chunk.

It might require a bit of glue in the middle of your current process, but this is where I'd start. I realize I'm talking through my hat here because I don't know anything about the structure of your files or what you're doing with them.

Cheers!
--marmot

Update: Got back from an inspection and clarified my comments.

In reply to Re^3: Creating Archives for Files > 4GB by furry_marmot
in thread Creating Archives for Files > 4GB by hoffy

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