Re: [Axiom-developer] database fixes

[Waldek Hebisch]

> > 2) Patch adds ability to dump uncompressed databases (easier to
> >    read): to get uncompressed format just set *do-not-compress-databases*
> >    to t
> 
> I feel you should simply patch the databases to remove the
> compression. It was only written so we could create databases
> that could fit on one diskette (1.4M). The whole idea is
> obsolete. 
> 
> There is a squeeze and an unsqueeze routine. 
> Removing calls to these should create uncompressed databases.
> 

Removing calls to unsqueeze would remove ability to read compressed
databases.  Since ATM interp.daase and category.daase are needed
for algebra bootstrap removing calls to unsqueeze requires 
uncompressed databases in the source archive. Not a big deal,
but the patch would be huge.

I am not sure if compression is obsolete: we have performance problem
with Spad compiler and databases may be part of this problem. If
we need fast reading of databases compressed version is likely to
be faster (of course there are other possibilites which may give more
speedup).  Also, uncompressed databases take 2Mb more disk space
then compressed one.

For development I want uncompressed databases, but for "production"
use compressed version has some advantages.  The advantages are
limited, so I would not write new code to handle compression. But
IMHO current compression code add very little to complexity of Axiom
so I am not sure if I want remove it (removal is easy, but what
if we need to re-add it later?). 

-- 
                              Waldek Hebisch
address@hidden