OpenEuphoria

Re: searching...

• Posted by Jacques Deschenes <desja at QUEBECTEL.COM> May 11, 1997
• 969 views

At 08:17 97-05-09 -0400, you wrote:

>O.K., I am in the process of making an update to my ZipMaster program.
>
>The thing that bugs me most about it is that it is so darn slow! I search
>the file string by string comparing every word to each other. Does anyone
>else know a faster way to look for certain words withen text files?

  Instead of checking each line character by character your program could
eliminate most of them with a simple test like:

  sequence line  -- contain line read from file

  if not match("include",line) and not find('"',line) then
     return -- skip this line
  end if


  Your zip master is only concern by lines that begin with the word
"include" and others that have double quotes. Resources files names have to
be between
double quotes.

  And zip master doesn't need to know wich procedure or function load the
requested resource.  Zip master only have to check if the double quotes enclose
 a valid file name.  Your program could have a function that check the contain
of any double quotes found in the file to see if it is a file name, a directory
name or else.  Directories names are added to a sequence containing path_list
for future search of files.  File names are searched on hard disk in any
directory member of path_list and current directory.

  the preceding method is based on the following assumptions:

1) any line beginning with the word "include" is followed by file name and
   nothing else.
2) Any double quote containing a path name is certainly assigned to a constant
   or variable that point to directory where the program search files.
3) Any double quote containing a string that is a valid dos file name is
possibly a resource name.  It can be confirmed by searching on disk for such
a file.

  I have tested this method with success.
Jacques Deschenes
Baie-Comeau, Quebec
Canada
desja at quebectel.com