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From: apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: FILE I/O
Message-ID: <884@atari.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Nov-87 20:35:14 EST
Article-I.D.: atari.884
Posted: Mon Nov  9 20:35:14 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Nov-87 04:49:50 EST
References: <2023@homxc.UUCP>
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 23

in article <2023@homxc.UUCP>, jdn@homxc.UUCP (J.NAGY) says:
> 
> The functions Fseek, fseek (and Fread, fread, Fwrite, fwrite, etc.)
> seem to perform essentially equivalent functions.  To do simple file
> i/o, I could use the capital F's or the small f's to do essentially
> the same things.  Is there a prefered choice?  How do you choose?

The cap-F functions are OS calls, and the little-f functions are library
calls.  If you use little-f functions, you are bound to the vagaries
of your library.  In the case of Alcyon's GEMLIB, these vagaries
are actually debilitating bugs.  I don't use GEMLIB's little-f functions.

Among the pitfalls you can encounter are: newline translation and redirection
problems.  The cap-F functions all treat files as bags o' bits, with no
translation or anything.  Many libraries translate \r\n in a file into
\n alone; this takes longer and may not be what you want.

Also note that the parameters are not in the same order:  the guy who
wrote GEMDOS got it wrong relative to UNIX.

============================================
Opinions expressed above do not necessarily	-- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp.
reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else.	  ...ames!atari!apratt