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From: goer@quads.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Re: Icon pipes in MSDOS
Message-ID: <1990Sep25.005711.29504@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: 25 Sep 90 00:57:11 GMT
References: <0093D32B5856BB80.204002AD@mis.mcw.edu>
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Tenaglia@mis.mcw.edu ("Chris Tenaglia - 257-8765") writes:

>MSDOS does have pipes, but they're implemented differently than unix...

This was in reference to my question about what people do to get direc-
tory listings on systems that don't support pipes.  I guess what I meant
to say was, "How do people get directory listings from within Icon on
systems that don't implement the "p" option for open() (i.e. do 'real'
pipes)?"

I'd be afraid to try to get a directory listing from Icon running under
MS-DOS using intermediate files because you can't always count on 1)
having enough free memory to do the system() function given Icon's
size, and 2) writing to disc introduces yet another level of indirec-
tion, and hence the possibility of many more errors (not enough disc
space, clobbering a previously existing tempfile, not being able to
write to the current directory, and not having a standard place for
temp files).

I'm searching for an answer to the dirlist from Icon problem because
I want to implement an indexing program in such a way that it can be
moved from Unix to Xenix to MS-DOS (others?) as easily as possible.
Part of the indexing procedure is to look at all file of a specified
type in a specified location.  This involves finding a portable way
of getting a directory listing....

-Richard