random i/o tools

[barmar@Think.COM (Barry Margolin)]

    Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 16:57:09 MDT
    From: bein@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Jonathan Bein)

    Does anyone in the SLUG community have or know of Symbolics 
    software that can be used for doing random file i/o?  I am doing
    some database work and need tools for disk based hashing, B-trees, etc. 
    to integrate in the software I am developing.  I am aware that similar
    software components are available in Statiuc, but I need random i/o
    utilities that are not embeeded in a proprietary product.

You can do random I/O with the standard stream I/O facilities in Genera.
The Common Lisp FILE-POSITION function can be used on binary streams to
go to any position in the file; this isn't permitted for character
streams because character set translations and character style
expansions make it difficult to determine the physical location in the
file corresponding to a character position.  However, there are also the
messages :READ-LOCATION and :SET-LOCATION, which can be used on any
stream; :READ-LOCATION returns an object that represents the current
location in the file, and :SET-LOCATION takes one of these objects and
repositions to that place (the object includes the physical position).
The -LOCATION messages aren't useful for database-style applications,
though, because the location objects are tied to a particular stream, so
they can't be passed around over time.

                                                barmar