From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2009-11-10T00:28:56+09:00
Subject: Re: FileString - request for comments

2009/11/9 Eleanor McHugh <eleanor@games-with-brains.com>:
> On 9 Nov 2009, at 13:54, apeiros@gmx.net wrote:

> It would probably be fairly trivial for you to directly support mmap at the
> OS level using Ruby/DL, Ruby-FFI or even syscall (although that's ugly and
> fragile).

I am still trying to wrap my head around the question whether hiding
file IO behind a String API is a good idea.  Basically the reason to
create something like this is to be able to use a file in places which
expect to be given a String instance.  However, code that uses String
assumes fast access to arbitrary portions of the string.  When those
accesses are translated into random accesses to a file performance
_might_ suffer dramatically.  Put differently: hiding the fact that we
are dealing with a file is convenient but may actually break your
neck.  And although at a certain level of abstraction a file and a
String are pretty much the same (sequence of chars / bytes) it may
actually be a good thing to keep the API separate in order to treat
both appropriately.  Stefan, what's your experience?

Kind regards

robert

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