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From: bdw@chinet.UUCP (Bill Wisner)
Newsgroups: net.micro.cbm
Subject: Re: (old) Sequential file problem
Message-ID: <376@chinet.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 27-Feb-86 18:37:59 EST
Article-I.D.: chinet.376
Posted: Thu Feb 27 18:37:59 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Mar-86 03:02:15 EST
References: <687@ark.UUCP>
Reply-To: bdw@chinet.UUCP (Bill Wisner)
Organization: The Computer Connection
Lines: 31

In article <687@ark.UUCP> lesmem@vu44.UUCP (Lesmeister Marco) writes:
>
>	How can I write data to a sequential file and overwrite the old
>	file with the same name, when I don't know for sure if there is
>	a file with that name.
>	I know now that there is a problem when I use the '@' option
>	and there is no file to overwrite, but how do I solve this.
>
>	I don't hope that the only solution is to check the directory
>	for the file-name, because that's a bore.
>

Just scratch the old file first. If the file DOES exist, than [boom!] it
won't for long. If the file is NOT there, than your drive will rattle around
a bit inside it's casing [you should be used to that], but no damage done.
The error channel will be cleared as soon as you begin writing, but if you
want to make it look a bit more "elegant", than you can check for errors
anyway. Who knows -- it might be READ ERROR instead of FILE NOT FOUND..

[But if you DO check the error line, make sure that you IGNORE any
 FILE NOT FOUND errors it may return!]
-- 
Bill Wisner / The Computer Connection			I'm a  very  irrespon-
UUCP:   ..ihnp4!chinet!bdw				sible person.  I could
CIS:    76474,1213					care  less  about  the
WOPR:	"root"						opinions  expressed in
USNail: 6290 Highway 44					the preceding message.
	Star, ID 83669

"In the beginning, God created the Apple ][ and the IBM PC.  And God looked at
the machines, and He saw that it was good."  [The Hacker's Bible, 1:1]