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From: perry@omepd.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Truncating MS-DOS files
Message-ID: <412@omepd>
Date: Wed, 18-Feb-87 23:19:51 EST
Article-I.D.: omepd.412
Posted: Wed Feb 18 23:19:51 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Feb-87 06:42:32 EST
References: <1987Feb15.123004.21019@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> <2596@well.UUCP> <3105@gitpyr.gatech.EDU>
Sender: news@omepd
Reply-To: perry@inteloa.intel.com (Perry The Cynic)
Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro
Lines: 39
Summary: It IS documented...

In article <3105@gitpyr.gatech.EDU> roy@gitpyr.gatech.EDU (Roy Mongiovi) writes:
>In article <2596@well.UUCP>, tenney@well.UUCP (Glenn S. Tenney) writes:
>> That is exactly the way it is documented!
>> RTFM:  function 28 Random Block Write
>>    ...  If CX is zero upon entry, no records are written, but the
>>         file is set to the length specified by the random record field,
>>         whether longer or shorter than the current file size.
>
> [...Roy telling us where he DIDN'T find this documented...]
>
>I know what RTFM means, and I consider it rude, especially when it involves
>something as (apparently) obscurely documented as this "feature" of MS-DOS.
>Perhaps you could give us some clue about WHERE you saw it stated, instead
>of simply yelling at us for being so ignorant as to overlook the
>documentation.  Thanks for your time.

Well, I don't know where Glenn got his quotation, but my MSDOS Programmer's
Reference Manual says exactly that in its description of function 28H
(though the wording is different). If this official MSDOS description makes
explicit mention of the feature, it can hardly be *obscurely documented*.
By the way, the equivalent handle write function (40H) has the same feature
(length=0 -> set file size), so it is definitively intended and not just some
underhanded side effect.

I am somewhat surprised that most of You don't seem to read the Programmer's
Reference Manual; after all, it's by definition the primary reference source
for (the external appearence of) MSDOS! Though it does have its oddities and
bugs, I have found it to be a decent, halfway complete description of the
MSDOS programming interface.

P.S.: What DOES *RTFM* mean?
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