Re: Biggish files

["Myron Gochnauer" GOCH@xxxxxxxx]

> From:     TBaehr@xxxxxxxx
> Date:     Tue, 5 Nov 1996 21:40:57 -0500
...
> XyWrite supposedly has no upper limit on file size, but it dies at about
> 4.1 to 4.2 meg (any combination of open files) with a bogus error message
> that the disk is full writing to the overflow file. I'd like to see no upper
> limit, or at least 32 meg.

Intrigued, I just tried this with version 4.017 and the largest file
I had on hand: 762K version of a XyWrite DLG file. I loaded this
file into all nine windows, jumped from beginning to end in all the
windows and let XyWrite do a page/line on one of the files. No
problem at all. XyWrite's window menu reported various combinations
of 762K files in memory and everything from 3K in memory and the
remainder in overflow.   That produces a total of something like
6.8 megs worth of files.

I then started merging files together, with the following result:

I'm using Win95 on a computer with 16megs and two hard disks.

I set Default dr=c:\,d:\
Space free on C: = 70+ megs
Space free on D: = 70+ megs

Loading BIG2 ( = 9,348,121 bytes) causes a crash as Tim described.

With XyWrite still hanging I switched to a file manager to see what
was on the disk. There were TMP files on both C: and D:. Neither
had anything in it (0 bytes), but could not be deleted (i.e. were
being accessed, presumably by XyWrite).

I then closed XyWrite (via Windows --- XyWrite itself was not feeling
well enough to listen). Switching back to the file manager, I
discovered the TMP files had now been written to:

C:\ ...TMP was 4,204,544 bytes
D:\ ...TMP was   20,480 bytes

The total of these is, of course, approximately Tim's 4+ meg limit.
(Might I suggest that we christen this "Tim's Limit" in honour of the
intrepid mover of heavy files?)

What does this mean??? Any techies out there to help? It looks to me
like there is some kind of problem with a buffer for disk writes. Is
this the operating system or XyWrite? Is there any way to get around
it?

How about some of you with OS/2 checking to see if you have Tim's
Limit too.

Is anyone using DR-DOS or something else? Do you have Tim's Limit?

...nothing like a good hunt for bugs to make life worth living. Much
more civilized than those bloody affairs with hounds and guns and
suffering animals.

Myron