Re: Binary files in Haskell

[Malcolm Wallace]

> If the representation is simple enough, you might consider accessing
> the database via C ...
> 
> Of course, Binary or Native would be easier, but the start-up time
> for a large database might be a problem.

In fact, Binary allows you to process the data directly from the disk
rather than hauling it all into memory.  This eliminates start-up time
altogether.  What's more, provided the file is used read-only, you can
use pure lazy functions to read the data, rather than having to sequence
everything through the IO monad.

(And of course for efficiency, the implementation of Binary is written
largely in C, via the GreenCard preprocessor for Haskell.)

Malcolm

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Dr Malcolm Wallace (functional programming research)   +44 1904 434756
Department of Computer Science, University of York, YORK YO1 5DD, U.K.
------------------------------------http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/~malcolm/