Lightweight Databases

Gappy Files

A variation: fill the gaps with newlines instead of NULs:

     ...
     if (length $oldrec == length $rec) {
       # easy case
       print $fh $rec;
     } elsif (length $rec < length $oldrec) {
       my $shortfall = length($oldrec) - length($rec);
       my $fill = "\n" x $shortfall;
       print $fh $rec, "\n", $fill;
     } else { # New record is too big
       my $fill = "\n" x length($oldrec);
       print $fh $fill;
       seek $fh, 0, SEEK_END;  # New record goes at the end
       print $fh $rec, "\n";
     }
     ...

Then have find ignore blank lines
- See mip2.pl in the handout