#: 5058 S2/Tutorials
    11-Jul-90  05:07:32
Sb: #5056-programmin in basic09
Fm: James Jones 76257,562
To: DAVID DE FEO 71630,721

Depends.  If records aren't of fixed length, it might be necessary to read a
file sequentially.  On the other hand, there may be various pieces of
index/pointer stuff in a file such that it isn't straightforward to read it
sequentially.  Also, some applications require reading every record, so you
might as well read it sequentially (and sequential access is more predictable,
so that any caching scheme is more likely to help you out with sequential
access).

Quite a few files can be read either way.

Not a very specific answer, but it depends enough on the application that I
can't give a very specific answer.  Time to snarf yourself a reference work on
data structures and file organization.