as i said i don’t see a solution with using pure mxs… but…
if anyone want to play:

do the same but using memstream

don’t make any arrays or strings in you method

it’s possible. it shouldn’t eat memory. it will be slow… but at least you have a chance to see an end…

Denis, I think the results of your method are different than the original code. It should leave the first 3 values untouched but still write them back to the output file.

Regarding performance, this yields a significant improvement:

source += "	public int ConvertCloud(String sourceFile, String targetFile)
"
	source += "	{
"
	source += "		String[] data = File.ReadAllLines(sourceFile);
"
	source += "		if (data != null)
"
	source += "		{
"
	source += "			char[] sp = new char[] { ' ' };
"
	source += "			string fmt = \"F3\";
"
	source += "			for (int d = 0; d < data.Length; d++)
"
	source += "			{
"
	source += "				String[] str = data[d].Split(sp, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
"
	source += "				if (str.Length == 6)
"
	source += "				{
"
	source += "					str[3] = (Single.Parse(str[3]) / 255f).ToString(fmt);
"
	source += "					str[4] = (Single.Parse(str[4]) / 255f).ToString(fmt);
"
	source += "					str[5] = (Single.Parse(str[5]) / 255f).ToString(fmt);
"
	source += "					data[d] = String.Join(\" \",str);
"
	source += "				}
"
	source += "			}
"
	source += "			File.WriteAllLines(targetFile, data);
"
	source += "			return data.Length;
"
	source += "		}
"
	source += "		else return -1;
"
	source += "	}
"

The reasons for improved performance are:

1. The data is changed in place, making less work for garbage collector.
2. Using File.WriteAllLines takes care of newline characters for me.
3. Array.ConvertAll was converting all 6 values instead of just the last 3.
4. Single.ToString(<string> format) is less expensive than String.Format(<string> format, <object> obj)
5. String.Join is faster than String.Format for this number of elements

LO,
i absolutely agreed with everything…

K…you guys are lightyears ahead of me here but it seems like you are getting it to work. I can’t really make any sense of what you guys have coded here though…so not quite sure how to create a script that i can run to test it.

Lo is right…the first three values are untouched and the last three are RGB values that are being converted to float values essentially.

For clarity sake, a new file doesn’t need to be made with the converted data if it would speed things up. I did it that way because i don’t really know another way. So if its easier to open a file…change it…then save it, thats fine by me. I really appreciate you guys having a look at it…even though i don’t get what your doing!

Use the code Denis posted and replace the relevant part with the method I posted.

Unfortunately that would introduce no speedup at all, though nothing prevents you from specifying the same file as both source file and target file.

What would really speed things up was if you could use files that have the values as bytes instead of ascii.

LO, i couldn’t beat your version… i don’t see any way to improve it.
so using lo’s version i added the progress changed event… here is a sample how to use it:

global CloudsAssembly
fn CreateCloudsAssembly forceRecompile:on =
(
	if forceRecompile or not iskindof ::CloudsAssembly dotnetobject or (::CloudsAssembly.GetType()).name != "Assembly" do
	(

source = ""
source += "using System;
"
source += "using System.Text;
"
source += "using System.IO;
"
source += "public class Clouds
"
source += "{
"
source += "	public delegate void ProgressHandler(object sender, ProgressEventArgs e);
"
source += "	public event ProgressHandler ProgressChanged;
"
source += "	private bool _reportProgress = false;
"
source += "	public bool ReportProgress 
"
source += "	{
"
source += "		get { return _reportProgress; }
"
source += "		set { _reportProgress = value; } 
"
source += "	}
"
source += "	private int _reportRate = 1;
"
source += "	public int ReportRate 
"
source += "	{
"
source += "		get { return _reportRate;  } 
"
source += "		set { _reportRate = value; } 
"
source += "	}
"
source += "	private void onUpdateProgress(string file, float progress, int size)
"
source += "	{
"
source += "		if (ProgressChanged == null) return;
"
source += "		ProgressEventArgs args = new ProgressEventArgs(file, progress, size);
"
source += "		ProgressChanged(this, args);
"
source += "	}
"
source += "	public int MakeTestCloud(string sourceFile, string line, int count)
"
source += "	{
"
source += "		string[] data = new string[count];
"
source += "		for (int k = 0; k < count; k++) data[k] = line;
"
source += "		File.WriteAllLines(sourceFile, data); 
"
source += "		return count;
"
source += "	}
"
source += "	public int ConvertCloud(string sourceFile, string targetFile)
"
source += "	{
"
source += "		string[] data = File.ReadAllLines(targetFile);
"
source += "		if (data != null)
"
source += "		{
"
source += "			char[] sp = new char[] { ' ' };
"
source += "			string fmt = \"F3\";
"
source += "			for (int k = 0; k < data.Length; k++)
"
source += "			{
"
source += "				string[] str = data[k].Split(sp, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
"
source += "				if (str.Length == 6)
"
source += "				{
"
source += "					str[3] = (Single.Parse(str[3]) / 255f).ToString(fmt);
"
source += "					str[4] = (Single.Parse(str[4]) / 255f).ToString(fmt);
"
source += "					str[5] = (Single.Parse(str[5]) / 255f).ToString(fmt);
"
source += "					data[k] = String.Join(\" \", str);
"
source += "				}
"
source += "				if ((ReportProgress) && ((k+1) % ReportRate == 0))
"
source += "				{
"
source += "					onUpdateProgress(targetFile, 100f * (k+1) / data.Length, data.Length);
"
source += "				}
"
source += "			}
"
source += "			File.WriteAllLines(sourceFile, data);
"
source += "			if (ReportProgress) onUpdateProgress(targetFile, 100f, data.Length);
"
source += "			return data.Length;
"
source += "		}
"
source += "		else return -1;
"
source += "	}
"
source += "	public class ProgressEventArgs : EventArgs
"
source += "	{
"
source += "		private string _file;
"
source += "		public string File
"
source += "		{
"
source += "			get { return _file; }
"
source += "			private set { _file = value; }
"
source += "		}
"
source += "		private float _progress;
"
source += "		public float Progress
"
source += "		{
"
source += "			get { return _progress; }
"
source += "			private set { _progress = value; }
"
source += "		}
"
source += "		private int _size;
"
source += "		public int Size
"
source += "		{
"
source += "			get { return _size; }
"
source += "			private set { _size = value; }
"
source += "		}
"
source += "		public ProgressEventArgs(string file, float progress, int size)
"
source += "		{
"
source += "			File = file;
"
source += "			Progress = progress;
"
source += "			Size = size;
"
source += "		}
"
source += "	}
"
source += "}
"

		csharpProvider = dotnetobject "Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeProvider"
		compilerParams = dotnetobject "System.CodeDom.Compiler.CompilerParameters"

		compilerParams.ReferencedAssemblies.AddRange #("System.dll")

		compilerParams.GenerateInMemory = on
		compilerResults = csharpProvider.CompileAssemblyFromSource compilerParams #(source)
		
		if (compilerResults.Errors.Count > 0 ) then
		(
			errs = stringstream ""
			for i = 0 to (compilerResults.Errors.Count-1) do
			(
				err = compilerResults.Errors.Item[i]
				format "Error:% Line:% Column:% %
" err.ErrorNumber err.Line err.Column err.ErrorText to:errs 
			)
			MessageBox (errs as string) title: "Errors encountered while compiling C# code"
			format "%
" errs
			undefined
		)
		else
		(
			assembly = compilerResults.CompiledAssembly
		)
	)
)
CloudsAssembly = CreateCloudsAssembly()

(
	Clouds = CloudsAssembly.CreateInstance "Clouds"
	Clouds.ReportProgress = on
	Clouds.ReportRate = 1000
	
	fn updateProgress s e =
	(
		format "% %
" e.Progress e.Size e.File
	)
	dotnet.removeAllEventHandlers Clouds
	dotnet.addEventHandler Clouds "ProgressChanged" updateProgress

	Clouds.MakeTestCloud @"c:	emp\cloud.txt" "0 0 0 -20 100 255" 100000
	
	Clouds.ConvertCloud @"c:	emp\cloud_cc.txt" @"c:	emp\cloud.txt"
)

i have a little improvement…
if our file format correct (all values are separated by one space symbol), we don’t need
StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries option to split. splitting without the option makes the function a little faster.

if the file is not correct the using of StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries doesn’t help any way in some cases (if tabulation used in place of space for example)

Wow! That works wayyyyyyyyy better then mine. It seems alot faster as well. One last thing i commented out the part where you were creating the the test file. This line:

 Clouds.MakeTestCloud @"c:	emp\cloud.txt" "0 0 0 -20 100 255" 100000
 

I just need to know how to make the input file and the output file selectable from a user standpoint. This line:

 Clouds.ConvertCloud @"c:	emp\cloud_cc.txt" @"c:	emp\cloud.txt"
 

Just wanted to say thanks again you guys…i really appreciate the help.