How can I use a large file in Delphi? - delphi

Question

When I use a large file in memorystream or filestream I see an error which is "out of memory"
How can I solve this problem?
Example:
procedure button1.clıck(click);
var
mem:TMemoryStream;
str:string;
begin
mem:=Tmemorystream.create;
mem.loadfromfile('test.txt');----------> there test.txt size 1 gb..
compressstream(mem);
end;

Answer 1

Your implementation is very messy. I don't know exactly what CompressStream does, but if you want to deal with a large file as a stream, you can save memory by simply using a TFileStream instead of trying to read the whole thing into a TMemoryStream all at once.
Also, you're never freeing the TMemoryStream when you're done with it, which means that you're going to leak a whole lot of memory. (Unless CompressStream takes care of that, but that's not clear from the code and it's really not a good idea to write it that way.)

Answer 2

You can't fit the entire file into a single contiguous block of 32 bit address space. Hence the out of memory error.
Read the file in smaller pieces and process it piece by piece.

Answer 3

Answering the question in the title, you need to process the file piece by piece, byte by byte if that's needed: you definitively do not load the file all at once into memory! How you do that obviously depends on what you need to do with the file; But since we know you're trying to implement an Huffman encoder, I'll give you some specific tips.
An Huffman encoder is a stream encoder: Bytes go in and bits go out. Each unit of incoming data is replaced with it's corresponding bit pattern. The encoder doesn't need to see the whole file at once, because it is in fact only working on one byte each time.
Here's how you'd huffman-compress a file without loading it all into memory; Of course, the actual Huffman encoder is not shown, because the question is about working with big files, not about building the actual encoder. This piece of code includes buffered input and output and shows how you'd link an actual encoder procedure to it.
(beware, code written in browser; if it doesn't compile you're expected to fix it!)
type THuffmanBuffer = array[0..1023] of Byte; // Because I need to pass the array as parameter
procedure DoActualHuffmanEncoding(const EncodeByte:Byte; var BitBuffer: THuffmanBuffer; var AtBit: Integer);
begin
// This is where the actual Huffman encoding would happen. This procedure will
// copy the correct encoding for EncodeByte in BitBuffer starting at AtBit bit index
// The procedure is expected to advance the AtBit counter with the number of bits
// that were actually written (that's why AtBit is a var parameter).
end;
procedure HuffmanEncoder(const FileNameIn, FileNameOut: string);
var InFile, OutFile: TFileStream;
InBuffer, OutBuffer: THuffmanBuffer;
InBytesCount: Integer;
OutBitPos: Integer;
i: Integer;
begin
// First open the InFile
InFile := TFileStream.Create(FileNameIn, fmOpenRead or fmShareDenyWrite);
try
// Now prepare the OutFile
OutFile := TFileStream.Create(FileNameOut, fmCreate);
try
// Start the out bit counter
OutBitPos := 0;
// Read from the input file, one buffer at a time (for efficiency)
InBytesCount := InFile.Read(InBuffer, SizeOf(InBuffer));
while InBytesCount <> 0 do
begin
// Process the input buffer byte-by-byte
for i:=0 to InBytesCount-1 do
begin
DoActualHuffmanEncoding(InBuffer[i], OutBuffer, OutBitPos);
// The function writes bits to the outer buffer, not full bytes, and the
// encoding for a rare byte might be significantly longer then 1 byte.
// Whenever the output buffer approaches it's capacity we'll flush it
// out to the OutFile
if (OutBitPos > ((SizeOf(OutBuffer)-10)*8) then
begin
// Ok, we've got less then 10 bytes available in the OutBuffer, time to
// flush!
OutFile.Write(OutBuffer, OutBitPos div 8);
// We're now possibly left with one incomplete byte in the buffer.
// We'll copy that byte to the start of the buffer and continue.
OutBuffer[0] := OutBuffer[OutBitPos div 8];
OutBitPos := OutBitPos mod 8;
end;
end;
// Read next chunk
InBytesCount := InFile.Read(InBuffer, SizeOf(InBuffer));
end;
// Flush the remaining of the output buffer. This time we want to flush
// the final (potentially incomplete) byte as well, because we've got no
// more input, there'll be no more output.
OutFile.Write(OutBuffer, (OutBitPos + 7) div 8);
finally OutFile.Free;
end;
finally InFile.Free;
end;
end;
The Huffman encoder is not a difficult encoder to implement, but doing it both correctly and fast might be a challenge. I suggest you start with a correct encoder, once you've got both encoding and decoding working figure out how to do a fast encoder.

Answer 4

try something like http://www.explainth.at/en/delphi/mapstream.shtml