Studio 6.x - $sendall very slow? (fixed length lists)

[Mike Matthews]

Well I'll be!   Still learning!!

I seem to recall a switch between making it long or fixed, was that Omnis 5 or 7v1 maybe?

Such a long time ago.....

Mike
(For once, silenced)


> On 2 Feb 2017, at 15:42, Doug Easterbrook <doug at artsman.com> wrote:
> 
> hi Nick.
> 
> it goes back away, but in omnis 7 you could do something like
> 
> define list     first_name/20.last_name/100,flag1,flag23,int1,big_char/300
> 
> 
> the /20 after first_name told omnis to reserve 20 characters of space, regardless of the actual length of the field or the contents of the field
> 
> 
> 
> so sticking ‘nick’ into the list would be ‘nick + 16 spaces’ for a total of 20 characters.
> 
> 
> This addressed the problem of unpacking and repacking a list and shifting it in memory — because the length of the character string was always 20.
> 
> 
> this could make things faster in omnis 7.   it could also kill you if you changed the file class and made first_name as 30 characters.  you’d have to go change your code everywhere.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> reading the studio 5.2 documentation — its still there —   but I don’t think it applies to smart lists and $defineFromSqlClass  — only useful for memory lists
> 
> ;  VariableName/N. For example to use only the first 10 characters
>                of the variable iCol3Char in column 3
> Define list {iCol1Date,iCol2Num,iCol3Char/10}
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Doug Easterbrook
> Arts Management Systems Ltd.
> mailto:doug at artsman.com
> http://www.artsman.com
> Phone (403) 650-1978
> 
>> On Feb 2, 2017, at 6:49 AM, Nick Renders <omnis1 at arcict.com> wrote:
>> 
>> To expand on Doug's method to add lines to a new list (point 2):
>> we do this as well, using a temporary Row variable instead of the CRB.
>> 
>> Here's an example:
>> 
>> 	;  ** lList1 is filled with data
>> 	Do lList2.$copydefinition(lList1)
>> 	Do lRow.$copydefinition(lList1)
>> 	For lList1.$line from 1 to lList1.$linecount step 1
>> 		Do lRow.$assignrow(lList1)
>> 		;  ** calculate some columns in lRow
>> 		Do lList2.$merge(lRow)
>> 	End For
>> 
>> 
>> By the way Doug, what is this Omnis 7 fixed length list?
>> I spent my fair share of time in Omnis 7, but it doesn't ring a bell.
>> 
>> Nick
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 1 Feb 2017, at 22:14, Doug Easterbrook wrote:
>> 
>>> hi andrew.
>>> 
>>> we learned this the hard way  a number of years ago.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> the performance issue, plain and simple, is what omnis needs to to to unpack/replace/pack the list.   it shuffles memory as other point out and it does it one line at a time.
>>> 
>>> if the items are at the beginning of the list, there is more memory to shuffle.
>>> 
>>> The best approaches:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 1) if the data is coming from a sql database, set the date properly in sql first an never in omnis — so that the data comes and is not changed on omnis
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 2)-0r-  process the list, change the data and COPY it to a new list so that you are always adding lines to the end of the NEW list.     adding lines does not cause memory shuffling.
>>> 
>>> 3) -or-  find out how many lines match your problem and if its only one or two, change them.  (doesn’t sound like there are one or two)
>>> 
>>> 4) -or  DO NOT CHANGE the data in the list —    change it on display in a list with a pick statement.
>>> 
>>> 5) -or- change the data with the same number of bytes.   (eg, replace integer data with an integer,  replace boolean with boolean,   replace 4 text characters with 4 text characters, not 5 or not 3).   the list is not extended in that case and it is the same number of bytes
>>> 
>>> 6) -or- use the old omnis 7 era FIXED length lists — you can declare lists to be fixed size so they won’t expand and contract.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> unpacking and packing a list is the most expensive performance issue and should be avoided at all costs, unless lists are very small.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Doug Easterbrook
>>> Arts Management Systems Ltd.
>>> mailto:doug at artsman.com
>>> http://www.artsman.com
>>> Phone (403) 650-1978
>>> 
>>> On Feb 1, 2017, at 10:01 AM, Andrew Stolarz <stolarz at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> In some cases we build a list of about 7000 rows and when I do a $sendall
>>> to replace the code for the "test" text, its painfully slow (10+ mins)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Do iv_ActivityList.$sendall($ref.iv_Type.$assign('test'),$ref.iv_Type='740')
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Any recommendations on how to make this fast in Omnis?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Andrew
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>> 
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