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Path: utzoo!censor!geac!yunexus!xrtll!silver
From: silver@xrtll.uucp (Hi Ho Silver)
Newsgroups: alt.msdos.programmer,comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer
Subject: Re: Why won't DOS allow more than 20 open files?
Message-ID: <1990Jun10.151538.25462@xrtll.uucp>
Date: 10 Jun 90 15:15:38 GMT
References: <90160.191651JXS118@psuvm.psu.edu>
Reply-To: silver@.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE)
Organization: Not around here, pal!
Lines: 24

In article <90160.191651JXS118@psuvm.psu.edu> JXS118@psuvm.psu.edu (Jeff Siegel, Op from Atherton Hall) writes:
$Even though I have the statement FILES = 40 in my config.sys, DOS refuses
$to open more than 20 files at once and returns error code 4 (no handles
$available) if I try to open more. I've tested this on 3 different version
$of DOS (all of which allegedly support the FILES statement) Any clues why this
$is?

   Yup.  Unless you fiddle DOS otherwise (and I forget how to), each process
is only allowed 20 file handles, irrespective of your FILES= statement.  The
FILES= statement controls how many files can be open at once, not how many
one process can have open.

   Keep in mind, also, that each process is provided with 5 file handles
already used (stdin, stdout, stderr, stdprn, and stdaux) so you really only
have 15 to work with.

   The workaround involves using some DOS call that expands the table of
file handles for your process, but I've never done it and I can't recall
how to do it.  I'm sure someone else will post it.
-- 
   /Nikebo \ Nikebo says "Nikebo knows how to post.  Just do it."\silver@xrtll/
  /---------\_____________________________________________________\----------/
 /yunexus!xrtll!silver (L, not 1)\ Hi Ho Silver \   just silver for short   /
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