note RhetTbull Take a look at [cpan://IO::Zlib]. I believe it'll
do exactly what you want -- that is, tie a compressed file and
treat it like an ordinary file handle (a la [cpan://Tie::File]).
In your case, I wouldn't keep the large data record compressed
AND use a compressed data file -- I don't see that it buys you
anything. Just use [cpan://IO::Zlib] and compress the whole
file.<BR> --RT 184139 184139