...often mandated by inferior programmers....

Ouch! I can feel the wrath of a zillion mainframe programmers aiming lightening bolts in your general direction...or was that private parts? :)

Funny thing is, if your filesystem supports transparent compression (as many mainframe file subsystems, and even my PC do), the "wasted space" per record amounts to 2 or 3 physical bytes per record in many cases. A filler byte plus a repetition count. Remove the need for a record separator and your almost at a status quo. Removing the need for field separators and your often into into positive ground.

Add the fact that you don't have to parse to find the fields and the performance can be a vast improvement over CSV and the like, never mind XML

Examine what is said, not who speaks.
"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." -Richard Buckminster Fuller
If I understand your problem, I can solve it! Of course, the same can be said for you.

In reply to Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: File I/O by BrowserUk
in thread File I/O by ced4dad

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