Unable to read data written by flatten to string (random)

[Aaditya]

I have been using flatten to string (4.x) to write a string array, then a large cluster to a binary data file (then 2d array of numbers). Over time my cluster has gotten rather large and recently about 1/2 of the files haven't been written properly. They write without mention of an error, but when i try to read them the size of the cluster is reported as 0 and i cannot read the file. I wrote a loop to secquence from 0 to infinity till it finds the proper size of the cluster (which takes a while) but it does eventually work and it does retrieve all the data.

Any ideas why the cluster size (binary) is not identical every time since it's the same cluster and many instances i don't even change any values in the cl
uster? And of course, any ideas why it's randomally not written properly? (any suggestions on a better way to write the data?) I have labview 6 now.

[mikeporter]

I can't visualize the data structure that you are flattening and then trying to unflatten. Can you post just the routines you use for saving and then reading the data?

In general though, the best way to save large amounts of data is in a database. A good database provides data storage that is both application- and platform-independent.

Mike...