From: Frank Heckenbach heckenb@mi.uni-erlangen.de <snip>

Would an ID of 8 bytes matter, i.e. are there any stream files where 4 additional bytes per object would matter?

<snip>

Why not make them 16 bytes? Sounds excessive maybe but that's how big a Globally Unique IDentifier (GUID)(or more pretensiously a Universally Unique IDentifier (UUID)) is...128bits....and there's a stanard for generating them...and anyone with a windows machine has an implementation of that(and the Mac and some UNIX boxes too). Upwardly comaptible with Microsofts Component Object Model(COM) and I'm sure the likes of CORBA use them too...

Dave