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From: kneller@ucsfcgl.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Major bug in all(?) versions of MS-DOS.
Message-ID: <10058@cgl.ucsf.edu.ucsfcgl.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 8-Feb-87 16:39:34 EST
Article-I.D.: cgl.10058
Posted: Sun Feb  8 16:39:34 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Feb-87 04:37:46 EST
References: <4274@utah-cs.UUCP> <479@ima.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@ucsfcgl.UUCP
Reply-To: kneller@cgl.ucsf.edu (Don Kneller)
Organization: UCSF Computer Graphics Lab
Lines: 16
Keywords: bug

In article <479@ima.UUCP> johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine) writes:
>In article <4274@utah-cs.UUCP> b-davis@utah-cs.UUCP (Brad Davis) writes:
>>; Here is a probable bug (or feature) in MS-DOS.  ...
>>; 	[ ...]
>It's a feture.  That is, it's supposed to work that way.  As far as I can
>tell, when you create a file, DOS writes a directory entry that is zero
>length.  When you close the file, DOS rewrites the directory entry.  If
>you try to read the file in the meantime, you lose.

You *can* read the file if you opened the file with read/write access and
position the file pointer back to the beginning of the file with "lseek".
-----
	Don Kneller
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