🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec21.194657.759@qb.rhein-main.de> vhs@rhein-main.de writes:
>In article <1992Dec20.164501.291@rlgsc.com> gezelter@rlgsc.com writes:
>[discussion about file formats on VMS vs. UNIX flat file deleted]
>> Incorrect. The reason that you cannot read it with C is that C 
>> has consistently ignored the standardization of IO interfaces.
>
>#include <stdio.h>
>
>(The first line in the first example code in the K&R C book)
>
>Honestly it's the definition of IO that's missing here. C/UNIX
>have standardized on NOT sequential but flat direct-access files
>for the filesystem and sequential access for pipes, some devices,
>input format for most system commands, etc.

That's an interesting point.  I am not an expert in Unix file access
but I'd guess that Unix has standardized on both sequential
and flat direct-access files, and that sequential access is just a
special case of direct access: read so many bytes sequentially from
a randomly-accessible point in a file.  Or, it has standardized on
sequential file access, and that direct access is a special case, using
the fseek() library call.

>I would hazard to say that using non-flat files just isn't as open
>as flat files, simply because the lowest common denominator is
>exceeded.

If you mean 'flat' as not being sequentially accessed, then some
sequentially-accessed files can be not open either in the sense
that the file formats are difficult to figure out.