Yes I have compared the performance. Within the ERP system I worked in we saw little difference. Yes dimensioned arrays MAY have some advantage under certain circumstances, but reading and accessing fields in a record is not one of them. Certainly not enough to justify throwing away one of the best features of the Pick database, or having to code work-arounds to deal with the short-comings of dimensioned arrays.
Again I am referring to the use of MATREADS and WRITES primarily here. When you do this the dim'd array only provides any benefits when accessing fields. When you get to dealing with value and sub-value mark separated data you are back to the 'slower' text extraction.
I generally don't like using dimensioned arrays at all, but outside of handling actual record structures they do have their uses.
Go to PickWiki and look at the sort routines there. They're actually an EXCELLENT example of where dimensioned arrays shine ...
Along with the various sort routines there, I wrote a tape sort. Now a tape sort is OPTIMISED for merging two already-sorted lists. But I wrote it (because I couldn't see any other sensible way) to use dynamic arrays.
So if DIM'd arrays aren't better at that sort of thing, how come a general-purpose sort like SHELL (using dim'd arrays) just blew TAPE out of the water, in a situation where tape was absolutely perfect for the scenario?
Cheers, Wol -- Anthony W. Youngman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 'Yings, yow graley yin! Suz ae rikt dheu,' said the blue man, taking the thimble. 'What *is* he?' said Magrat. 'They're gnomes,' said Nanny. The man lowered the thimble. 'Pictsies!' Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett 1998 Visit the MaVerick web-site - <http://www.maverick-dbms.org> Open Source Pick ------- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
