🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4f8qf1$h3b@ssbunews.ih.att.com>,
Harold E. Bamford <bamford@marconi.ih.att.com> wrote:
>In article <uEYFxc9nX8WX083yn@mbnet.mb.ca>,
>Nathan T. Wild <natewild@mbnet.mb.ca> wrote:
>
>>In C, why would one use open and DOS int handles rather than fopen and
>>stdio file handles?
>>
>>Is there some speed advantage or differnet functionality?
>
>open() is for raw I/O.  You use read(), write(), lseek(), ltell()
>
>fopen() is for buffered I/O.  You can use fread(), fscanf(), fgets(),
>getchar(), putchar, fprint(), fwrite(), fseek(), ftell(), etc.

False. Both are buffered. The latter does an extra copy.

The justification for the extra buffering in the latter is that you can pump
data in smaller chunks _without_ causing needless context switches to the
kernel.

Calling fread() a byte at a time is much more efficient than calling read() a
byte at a time, because each call to read() causes a call to the kernel.

However, calling read() several kilobytes at a time is more efficient than
fread(), because it dispenses with an extra level of overhead.

>For certain applications, you can get away without buffering.  But
>often it is easier to do the programming if you don't have to worry
>about unneeded system calls and buffering gives you that.
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Ah, now you are hitting much closer to the target!
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