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From: ICNM2@EBCCUAB1.BITNET ("Centre Nacional de Microelectronica ", Barcelona)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Reading seq files with F83 (Help)
Message-ID: <9001161917.AA02453@jade.berkeley.edu>
Date: 16 Jan 90 16:31:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: Forth Interest Group International List <FIGI-L%SCFVM.bitnet@jade.berkeley.edu>
Organization: The Internet
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Hi Forthers !

I'm using L&P F83 to write a simple application that allows me to translate
from one graphical format to another (CIF to DXF as a matter of fact), this
exercise also allows me to *learn* some forth. But I'm having some difficulties
to read a non-blocked file, I see some solutions :

    1) convert my sequential file to a blocked one before processing
       ( I really hate this)

    2) patch f83 FILE-READ word so it can read less than 8 128-byte records
       ( I think this is not a good idea looking at the virtual memory system
         in f83 )

    3) handle the "interrupt vector" ?ERROR, so when BLOCK attempts to read
       the last block (the one with the EOF within), don't ABORT's and I
       my program can process the data that's already in the buffer.
       ( seems nice but's uneasy, some guidelines ?)

    4) Write my own I/O subsytem to handle sequential files. I know this
       has been done (in F-PC, etc), but I like the KISS approach.

    5) ???

Somebody have any ideas ?

Thanks from a beginner

Carles