script puzzle

[Phil Davis]

OK, first my disclaimer: I'm making this all up as I go.

I'm thinkin' the problem is likely this: 
The "line tNum of temp1" phrase forces MC to examine each char in the container, starting at the start, and keep a tally of the line delimiters it finds, until the tally = the target line number. The code asks MC to do this at least once per iteration, and probably 7x (it's used in 7 statements inside the loop). It takes more time to do as the target line number grows greater, because there is a greater number of line delimiters (returns) that have to be found than when it was looking for a lower line number.

If this is the problem, Mr. Yennie's approach (or any similar one) should take care of it. It eliminates line-delimiter counting entirely.

Of course, I could be wrong. ;o)

Phil Davis


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "andu" <undo at cloud9.net>
To: <metacard at lists.runrev.com>
Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 2:29 PM
Subject: script puzzle


> This script reads a 5700 line file, each line with 15 "|" delimited
> chunks, replaces some items with new values and dumps the result into a
> new file. It starts fast but towards the end does less 2 lines per
> second. Can't figure out what slows it down. 
> (Linux, Athlon 750MHz, 128Mb RAM).
> Anyone has a clue? This is done as a command line script, no UI.
> 
> on startup
> put url ("file:./file.txt") into temp
> set the itemdel to "|"
> put 0 into tNum
> repeat for each line i in temp
> add 1 to tNum
> --put tNum
> put cr & i  after temp1
> put "-" into first item of line tNum of temp1
> put "-un-" into item 2 of  line tNum of temp1
> put 0 into last item of line tNum of temp1
> put 0 into item -2 of  line tNum of temp1
> put 0 into item -3 of  line tNum of temp1
> put 0 into item -4 of  line tNum of temp1
> put 0 into item -5 of  line tNum of temp1
> end repeat
> put temp1 into url ("file:./file2.txt")
> end startup
> -- 
> ____________________
> Regards, Andu Novac
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