Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: fopen ( ..., "a" ) --- how does the "a" work?
Message-ID: <11775@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 8 Dec 89 02:49:51 GMT
References: <3250@hub.UUCP> <1989Dec7.130813.4992@virtech.uucp>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 8

In article <1989Dec7.130813.4992@virtech.uucp> cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill) writes:
-Under other os's this will depend upon the capabilities of the os.
-Else If the system has a mechanism to move around a file (like unix lseek())
-	it will probably be used to move to the end of the file before each
-	write.

On a single-user non-multitasking system, a better implementation would
be to seek to the end only on the initial open, not for each write.