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From: ndiamond@watdaisy.UUCP (Norman Diamond)
Newsgroups: net.lang.pascal,net.lang
Subject: Re: Re: Language transitions
Message-ID: <7020@watdaisy.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 28-Feb-85 13:14:56 EST
Article-I.D.: watdaisy.7020
Posted: Thu Feb 28 13:14:56 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Mar-85 20:06:42 EST
References: <685@topaz.ARPA>, <975@reed.UUCP> <2802@ncsu.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
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Xref: watmath net.lang.pascal:255 net.lang:1475

> From various sources:  "Pascal I/O is defective because it provides
>   - no random access

Fortran-77, PL/I, and Cobol can do this in a portable manner.  (They can
also do it in dozens of non-portable manners, which is irrelevant.)

>   - no way to open a file with a specified name from with the program.
> 	reset(input,'foo') is an extension. It is not in the standard.  

Fortran-77 can do this in a portable manner.  Of course, the file name
(contained in a character string) must be recognizable by the operating
system.  Believe it or not, Fortran beats PL/I and Cobol this time,
because PL/I's "title" option is non-portable and Cobol cannot specify
the actual filename in a "select" statement (at least, not portably).

>   - the representation of files other than text is not defined.  This
> 	means that you can't write records onto a tape and expect to
> 	read the tape on a different system.

That is a demand that all systems should be identical, which is antithetical
to the concept of portability.  You'll never see that.

>   - no way to APPEND to a file, (without copying out its contents,
>     wiping out the file, and putting them back in
>     before the appending)"

In Fortran, you can read to the end of a file and then start writing --
that's only half as bad.  For that matter, the "open" statement might
include positioning information; I don't remember.

Please observe that the C  LANGUAGE  provides none of these capabilities.
If you want to talk about  LIBRARY ROUTINES, they can be added to ANY
language.

-- 

   Norman Diamond

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"Opinions are those of the keyboard, and do not reflect on me or higher-ups."