Re: [MacPerl] deleting a line again

[David Steffen <steffen@biomedcomp.com>]

Everyone has said:

>You will have to re-write the whole file.

I understand this is the classic answer and the most (only?) 
practical one in a MacPerl environment, but ya know, I couldn't help 
wonder...

Files are not monolithic lines of bits on a platter, they are 
distributed among sectors.  It seems to me that with the right 
filesystem, you ought to be able to modify but one sector.  Yeah, 
yeah, that would leave an un-full sector which classically can only 
be the last one, but:
a) is that true in all modern filesystems (hfs+ for example)?
b) need that always be true?

I guess the first paragraph makes this, by definition, off topic.  Sorry.

-David Steffen-
David Steffen, Ph.D.
President, Biomedical Computing, Inc. <http://www.biomedcomp.com/>
Phone: (713) 610-9770 FAX: (713) 610-9769 E-mail: steffen@biomedcomp.com

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