Efficient file I/O for object saving facility...

[waander@cs.umd.edu (Bill Andersen)]

  I'm working on a facility to save objects to a binary file for a
project I'm doing at school.  I want to encode/decode standard CL data
objects (lists, vectors, integers, etc) in a binary format so they can
be saved an restored quickly.  I'm using the standard WRITE-BYTE and
READ-BYTE with 8-bit byte streams.  Anyone who's read ch 4.4-4.5 of
Sonya Keene's intro to CLOS will know what I am trying to do.  Anyway,
I have a first cut implemented and it seems to be really slow.  Since
I am new to the business of writing and reading non-text files in MCL,
I'm sure there is something I'm overlooking.  Is using the generic
dispatch on the built-in classes the wrong way to go?  Are there
faster ways to write/read such files?

  Thanks in advance...

  ...Bill


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    Bill Andersen (waander@cs.umd.edu) |
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