the large file challenge

[Richard Gaskin]

Sadhunathan Nadesan wrote:

> #!/usr/local/bin/mc
> on startup
> put "/gig/tmp/log/xaa" into the_file
> put 1 into start_read
> put 0 into the_counter
> put 1 into the_offset
> open file the_file for read
> read from file the_file until eof
> put the num of lines of it into end_read
> close file the_file
> repeat while (start_read < end_read)
> open file the_file for read
> read from file the_file at the_offset for 99 lines
> put it into the_text
> put the number of chars of it + the_offset into the_offset
> repeat for each line this_line in the_text
> if (not eof) then
> if (this_line contains "mystic_mouse") then
> put the_counter + 1 into the_counter
> end if
> end if
> end repeat
> close file the_file
> add 100 to start_read
> end repeat
> put the_counter
> end startup
> 
> 
> Now, I feel sure we could improve this, fix my errors, etc  .... anyone?

I'm confused:  if the point is to avoid reading the entire file into memory,
isn't what what line 8 does?  And if it's already in memory, why is it read
again inside the loop?

I think I missed something from the original post....

-- 
 Richard Gaskin 
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