on 1/23/02 11:54 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] purportedly said: > what is the command to WRITE in the way of random access? > Is there a command opposite to "read"?
Not that I recall, but it isn't necessary. You would use pack() to fix the length. One fixed length caveat: if you want to completely delete a record, you can get back into the whole file rewrite problems again. This can be avoided by doing what many database system do, and re-use record space. An example would be having a status byte or overwriting the record with spaces. By indicating in the index that the record is empty, you can then write into the first available empty record space. Alternatively, when reading, you can skip blanks, and when writing, write to the first blank record or the end of the file, whichever comes first. seek() is you best friend ;-) Keary Suska Esoteritech, Inc. "Leveraging Open Source for a better Internet"
