Ask HN: What justify this 149bytes difference? [text editor related]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3843966

by aolczak • 14 years ago

1 4 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Assuming: - a single char takes 1 byte. - a linked list takes about 5 bytes/char. - a double linked list takes about 9 bytes/char.

1. Why is "Plain Text" format so low on memory. Is it using an array as storage?

2. Why is "Rich Format" so heavy?

Insight, details answers, and links welcome.

cd34• 14 years ago

Move the file to a linux/bsd machine and do:

  hexdump -C plaintextfilename
  hexdump -C richtextfilename

aolczak2• 14 years ago

thanks for this Canonical hex+ASCII display tip.

can't try atm, but will as soon as I can log to linux.

read_wharf• 14 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Text_Format#Code_example

From their example:

    $ echo "{\rtf1\ansi{\fonttbl\f0\fswiss Helvetica;}\f0\pard
    This is some {\b bold} text.\par
    }" |wc -c
    86
    
    $ echo "This is some bold text." |wc -c
    24

Also see cd34's comment.

If you're going to add information, that has to be a higher byte count.

aolczak2• 14 years ago

forgot the default font, size, alignment and so on, on rtf.

thanks for pointing that out.

Ask HN: What justify this 149bytes difference? [text editor related]

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