Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!iuvax!bsu-cs!dhesi From: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Devices in general Message-ID: <4972@bsu-cs.UUCP> Date: 6 Dec 88 16:17:07 GMT References: <5816@louie.udel.EDU> <3061@sugar.uu.net> Reply-To: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana Lines: 11 In article <3061@sugar.uu.net> peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: [some name-calling because zoo won't write its archives to standard output] The reason zoo archives aren't written to standard output is because doing so requires sequential writes. If they were, updating an archive would require copying the entire archives. This would mean that you could not manipulate large archives in limited disk space. Database handling programs in general don't write purely sequentially. -- Rahul Dhesi UUCP:!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi