Managing very large files

[Heiko Wundram (Beenic)]

Am Donnerstag 04 Oktober 2007 22:16:29 schrieb Steve Bertrand:
> This is what I am afraid of. Just out of curiosity, if I did try to read
> the entire file into a Perl variable all at once, would the box panic,
> or as the saying goes 'what could possibly go wrong'?

Perl most certainly wouldn't make the box panic (at least I hope so :-)), but 
would barf and quit at some point in time when it can't allocate any more 
memory (because all memory is in use). Meanwhile, your swap would've filled 
up completely, and your box would've become totally unresponsive, which goes 
away instantly the second Perl is dead/quits.

Try it. ;-) (at your own risk)

-- 
Heiko Wundram
Product & Application Development