Large Text File Editors

Date: Sat, 4 Dec 1993 01:24:32 +0200 (EET) From: Matti Haveri <mhaveri@phoenix.oulu.fi> Subject: Text editor for large files (S) I asked what is the best application to view and edit large text-files _without huge amounts of memory_ and with the option to automatically wrap lines longer than the screen _without adding LF/CR_ (auto-wrap)? Search and replace would be nice too. **TeachText** and **TexEdit** have auto-wrap but they can open only <30K files. **SaintEdit** has auto-wrap but it needs much application memory when opening big files. **Edit II** is also memory-hungry with large files. It has auto-wrap-option but there it means that it just inserts CR's at the right margin automatically. It turns out that **BBEdit** is also memory-dependent so it can't open huge files with little available memory. Even though its application memory is only 300K it uses System memory when dealing with large files. BBEdit 2.2.2's manual says: > File size limited only by available memory. BBEdit's default > partition size is 512K of RAM. This can be set as low as 300K, to > make BBEdit the ideal constantly-resident editor for small to > moderate tasks, or turned up as high as necessary to edit many large > files or perform large-scale search-and-replace operations. If youUre > running under System 7.0, BBEdit automatically _takes advantage of_ > _available system memory_, so that you donUt have to adjust its > partition size to edit large files. So my 1.3M test file (which, by the way, was "interest-groups") was about the largest file BBEdit could open with 2500K of free memory. **Quick View** could open the 1.3M test-file _very fast_ and with just 20K of free memory it uses by itself. However, it crashed the system if Cancel-button was pressed in open file dialog box. Without those bad crashes (7.0.1, shift-boot) this small DA would be nice although it lacks auto-wrap (in fact it lacks everything except the ability to view text - copying and pasting are missing too). **McSink** also takes advantage of available system memory so it couldn't open the 1.3M file when there wasn't enough memory and it lacks auto-wrap too. McSink's commercial version **Vantage** (Signature Software for Preferred Publishers) has automatic word wrap but I don't know if it is still sold as McSink's date is as old as 1/25/90. And I'm not sure if its auto-wrap is similar to Edit II. I tried **Alpha 5.63** and it, too, used System memory and inserted CR's when converting from paragraph format. > ~John W. LeBlanc:~ I have sucessfully used McSink (shareware) for this > it features "Wrap to length" and "Wrap to Window", and can "Form > Paragraphs" from CR laden text. The commercial version is Vantage, > which offers automatic word wrap and filters for word procesing > documents. > > ~Dr Alun J. Carr:~ ...the one I tend to use most is Alpha (mostly > because it has superb facilities for LaTeX users). > > ~Larry K. Smith:~ You want Alpha, a great shareware t…