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From: jon@jonlab.UUCP (Jon H. LaBadie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: problem with fread/fwrite
Summary: A clarification please
Keywords: fread, fwrite, file pointers
Message-ID: <880@jonlab.UUCP>
Date: 16 Nov 90 07:14:41 GMT
References: <402@bally.Bally.COM> <14384@smoke.brl.mil> <13992@ulysses.att.com> <3337@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU>
Organization: 4455 Province Line Rd., Princeton, NJ 08540
Lines: 24

Despite all the discussion on this topic, I do not see the need for
the programmer to indicate a switch from reading to writing and visa
versa.  I mean I know it is needed, but I do not understand why.

If in the stdio buffer I have the following;

	Mary had a big sheep.  Supercalifragalisticexpalidocious ...
	^

With my pointer (read in this case) on the 'M', after I fread 23 bytes,
so my buffer and pointer are such:

	Mary had a big sheep.  Supercalifragalisticexpalidocious ...
	                       ^

what is wrong with fwrite'ing "Jack and Jill" on top of Super...?
I.e. what is critical returning to some ground zero state before
making a transition?

Jon

-- 
Jon LaBadie
{att, princeton, bcr, attmail!auxnj}!jonlab!jon