129. Number compression
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Further to tip 128, here is a way of storing that compressed date as a 2-byte
integer. You must dimension some memory space twice the size of the number of
dates to be stored. In the example below, I have assumed that 1000 dates are
to be stored.

The first Procedure places the already compressed date Z% in position N% out
of the list of 1000. Eg PROCstore(44119,500) actually places 23rd Feb 1986 in
position 500 out of 1000. To read a stored date, the Function will return the
compressed date stored at position N%. Eg PRINT FNfind(450) will print the
compressed date stored in position 450 out of 1000. You can then use the
second Function to turn it into a sensible date string. Using these Functions
and Procedures as building blocks, you can incorporate them into your own
programs.

  100 DIM array% 2000
  200 REM Program somewhere here.
 3000 DEFPROCstore(Z%,N%)
 3010 array%?(N%*2-1)=Z%:array%?(N%*2)=Z%DIV256:ENDPROC
 3020 :
 4000 DEFFNfind(N%):=array%?(N%*2-1)+(array%?(N%*2))*256