Re: Looking for Indexed Sequential File Package

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Larry said

<<You do not mention any reliability requirement, but if I were
in the market for such a thing I would likely be quite concerned
about ensuring that a write-through caching strategy was used.
Achieving that is beyond the control of the Ada environment,
and not going to be automatic if the operating systems involved
are Windows NT or Unix.
>>


That's too simplistic. NT is a fully journaled file system. The exact
needs for integrity vary of course, but ensuring write through caching
is neither necessary nor sufficient for achieving file integrity in
any environment.

Generally a straightforward approach will work fine in practice over
a jornalled file system like the one in NT (some Unices but not all
also have reasonable file systems).

As for making a portable efficient indexed file access package. This is
perfectly possible (the package I did for Realia COBOL did not depend on
any OS specific features, and could be ported to other environments).