Re: naming data sets

[Jason Stover]

On Fri, Dec 16, 2005 at 08:39:02AM -0800, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> Here's what I'd add to the PSPP language:
> 
>         * Some extra syntax on FILE HANDLE for declaring
>           temporary file handles (MODE=TEMPORARY perhaps).
> 
>         * A new command for destroying temporary file handles
>           (e.g. CLOSE FILE HANDLE or DELETE FILE HANDLE), so that
>           the memory or disk space used to store them can be
>           freed up.
> 
>         * GET, SAVE, XSAVE would be extended to read and write to
>           temporary file handles.  I'd introduce some kind of
>           syntactic sugar so that it wasn't strictly necessary to
>           declare temporary file handles in advance,
>           e.g. something like XSAVE OUTFILE=TEMPORARY
>           <HANDLENAME> would work properly.
> 
> Internally, a temporary file handle would be represented by a
> dictionary plus a casefile, I think.  When PSPP terminates, the
> data in temporary file handles would automatically disappear,
> just like data in the active file.
> 
> This would be pretty easy to implement.  Would it allow you to do
> what you want?  Does it seem like a good idea?

Yes, this sounds good to me.

-Jason

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