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From: blbates@AERO4.LARC.NASA.GOV ("Brent L. Bates AAD/TAB MS294 x42854")
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: 'binary' files
Message-ID: <8910242343.AA05386@aero4.larc.nasa.gov>
Date: 24 Oct 89 20:43:32 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 21


    The problem is that it ISN'T a binary file.  It is an unformatted
file.  The 3000's let you create BINARY files, I don't think any of the 4D
machines will let you (in FORTRAN).  If you specify 'BINARY' as the
form in a FORTRAN open statement, you don't get a binary file; you get
an unformatted file that has record marks between each record.  A binary
file created on a 3000 doesn't have these record marks.  The only bytes
in the file are what you write there.
    On the 4D's the only way to get a binary file from a FORTRAN program
is to write a C routine that does the binary writes and call it from FORTRAN.
    I hope SGI changes this.  Binary writes from FORTRAN are a MUST in
my work.  This is one of the things I will dread, if we get a 4D machine.
I find unformatted files useless, they are also larger than binary files.
--

	Brent L. Bates
	NASA-Langley Research Center
	M.S. 294
	Hampton, Virginia  23665-5225
	(804) 864-2854
	E-mail: blbates@aero4.larc.nasa.gov or blbates@aero2.larc.nasa.gov