FileIO - trailing junk...

Question

Okay, there's a major weakness with FileIO - if your save
file already
exists, and the data you're saving over it is smaller than
its previous
size, you end up with a bunch of trailing junk at the end of
the file, which
can confuse matters when that file gets loaded up again the
next time.
What's the best way of dealing with this? Is there some way
to cut the file
off at the end of the new data being added? Or is it better
to just
completely delete the file and recreate it from scratch every
time? (This
method probably works the most reliably, but it takes twice
as long.)
Another method I'd heard was to follow your data with a bunch
of blank
space, enough to overwrite any stray data, though determining
how MUCH blank
space varies greatly depending on the situation. Finally,
there's the
possibility of adding a terminator character after the data
which you
program your Open File function to recognize as "End of
Data", and ignore
any junk after that.
If the first method (cutting off the file) is possible, I'd
think that'd be
the best method. Deleting and recreating it is reliable, but
has a drawback
in terms doubling your save time. The other two methods could
work, but
don't really address the real problem - they both leave the
file bloated
larger than it needs to be, and you end up with extra useless
junk (or
spaces) at the end of your data. What method would you guys
think is
preferable overall?

Answer 1

I generally do the delete and create method. For the projects
I've woriked on the size of the text files are fairly small in KB
even if they are a lot of pages of text, so they save pretty fast.
Even if the speed doubles, that seems a small sacrifice to me for
having a clean file.
So for what it is worth...