05 Aug 95 10:16, Frank Cox escrib¡a a Whoever cares:
Hi Frank!
 FC> Hypothetical situation:  We have a database containing names and
 FC> yes/no answers, like this:
 FC> I see two characteristics of this database that "waste space".  First,
 FC> all of the ASCII characters in the names are CHR$(127) or less.
 FC> Second, a yes/no answer only requires one bit to be on or off.
 FC> Question:  Has anyone written a routine or does anyone know how to
 FC> build and maintain a datafile in PowerBASIC where a field can be
 FC> defined using 7-bit ASCII and a field can be only one bit long if
 FC> required?
 Ummm! A system that uses a 7 bit storage strategy has a big speed penalty 
more that the memory that remains free. The speed reduction may be around 
30-1 and the memory reduction may be around 7-1, this situation made this 
algoritm not interesting.
 In the other hand a 1 bit storage is easy and has a direct support by PB, 
you can do this:
 Dim MyVar (1000) as BYTE
 And you can access to an 8.000 bit field array using:
 Answer=Bit(MyVar(0),5000)
 And set it with:
 Bit Set MyVar(0),5000
 Note: I think that the PB 'bounds check' don't test this situation, be 
carefull.
Saludotes,
       ,,,   JOS (2:348/102)
      `0-0'  jmejuto@encomix.com
     /-(_)-\ mejuto@sfdzuma.usc.es
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