Konrad Hinsen wrote: > I don't see what you refer to. Python's file handling works much like > C's stdio library; you can read arbitrary parts out of a file. There > are also database interfaces (dbm and variants), which make it easy to > store data in large files, but these are special-format files that are > hardly useable with general programs like editors. > You'll have to pardon my ignorance. I am too used to manipulating text files in Pascal. (Don't laugh.) > Example: suppose we use strings for nucleotide sequences now, and then > find out next year that we must be able to treat sequences that are > longer than available memory. Then we'll just write a small C module > that implements a special "nucleotide sequence" type. This can look > like a drop-in replacement for strings to Python, and all that will > have to be changed in the Python code is the place where nucleotide > sequence types are created. There are some advantages to a language > without static type checking! > ...and this "nucleotide sequence" type will work straight from a file rather than memory. Jeff -- J.W. Bizzaro Phone: 617-552-3905 Boston College mailto:bizzaro at bc.edu Department of Chemistry http://www.uml.edu/Dept/Chem/Bizzaro/ --