Powerbasic

 BBS: Inland Empire Archive
Date: 03-18-92 (05:10)             Number: 164
From: BILL BEELER                  Refer#: NONE
  To: RONNIE PIERCE                 Recvd: NO  
Subj: Powerbasic                     Conf: (2) Quik_Bas

In a message to Tom Kiehl <16 Mar 92 05:52> Ronnie Pierce wrote:

 >TK>To really speed 'em up (and speed up linking too) dump the C code and
 >TK>go to ASM.  Much tighter, compact and FAST! Since the C code is
 >TK>usually used to deal with lower level functions i.e. direct screen,
 >TK>memory, ports and hardware they are usually easy to replace. AND the
 >TK>calls to ASM are much simpler since you are dealing directly with the

 RP>  I would if assembly code would outrun QB's binary file mode.
 RP> There is some bottleneck when calling asm file routines and I
 RP> have yet to find one that beats QB's BINARY read for gathering a
 RP> string buffer (4096 or so bytes).

I couldn't get assembler loads to work as fast as BINARY
either....it seems as if I read somewhere that BINARY
doesn't use a buffer (and setting LEN = to the end of the
OPEN did help as far as speed) and just reads directly into
the variable through DOS buffers. Have you ever used
something like this for up to a 64K read ?

DEFINT A-Z

TYPE SixtyFourK
  Part1 AS STRING * 32767
  Part2 AS STRING * 32767
  Part3 AS STRING * 1
END TYPE

TYPE ThirtyTwoK
  Part4 AS STRING * 32767
END TYPE

'$DYNAMIC
REDIM Buffer64K(0)  AS SixtyFourK
REDIM Buffer32K(0) AS ThirtyTwoK

Arg$ = LTRIM$(RTRIM$(COMMAND$))

Break = INSTR(Arg$, " ")
IF Break = 0 THEN
  END
ELSE
  Length = LEN(Arg$)
  Arg1$ = LEFT$(Arg$, Length - Break)
  Arg2$ = MID$(Arg$, Break + 1)
  IF LEN(DIR$(Arg1$)) = 0 OR LEN(Arg2$) = 0 THEN END
END IF

OPEN Arg1$ FOR BINARY AS #1
WhatsLeft& = LOF(1)
OPEN Arg2$ FOR BINARY AS #2
DO
  IF WhatsLeft& < 65535 THEN
    IF WhatsLeft& < 32767 THEN
      LastBuffer$ = STRING$(WhatsLeft&, 32)
      GET #1, , LastBuffer$
      PUT #2, , LastBuffer$
      WhatsLeft& = 0
    ELSE
      GET #1, , Buffer32K(0)
      PUT #2, , Buffer32K(0)
      WhatsLeft& = WhatsLeft& - 32767
    END IF
  ELSE
    GET #1, , Buffer64K(0)
    PUT #2, , Buffer64K(0)
    WhatsLeft& = WhatsLeft& - 65535
  END IF
LOOP UNTIL WhatsLeft& = 0

LastBuffer$ = ""


The DIR$ will only work in QBX/PDS (unless you link PDQ
after BCOM45...can't use the PDQ library because it has
limits of 32K per array element...that took me a couple of
hair pulling hours to find ;-)...and you have to add the
/ah or /d switch to BC...although MS says you can have
TYPEs of up to 64K, the seemed to have left off the part
that you need to compile with array bounds checking if you
use that TYPE in an array) but if you take it out you can
use this in QB as well. It's faster than DOS's COPY but I
think I have VERIFY ON.

                                                   ...Bill...
--- GEcho/beta
 * Origin: Amber Shadow BBS - MultiLine, MultiProblems - HST/V32b (1:203/988)