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From: daemon@stag.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Fcreate() bug?
Message-ID: <260@stag.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Nov-87 01:52:22 EST
Article-I.D.: stag.260
Posted: Wed Nov 18 01:52:22 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Nov-87 03:55:22 EST
Sender: daemon@stag.UUCP
Lines: 26

> I recently read on this net (by Dale Schumacher) that Gemdos Fcreate
> does not  work properly.  Can someone (maybe Dale) elaborate on that?
> I use this function in an editor program, which means quite often for
> existing files, and I never ran into problems: Existing files are
> properly deleted before  a new file with the same name is created.
> How can this bug be observed? If I can reproduce it, I have to do the
> trick with Fdelete first. But at present I see no need for that.
> 
> Roland Waldi

  The Fcreate() problem is a difficult one to pin down.  I'm still not
sure what the exact cause is.  In the version of MicroEMACS that I modified,
the Fcreate() function was used to create the output file (presumably
overwriting any existing file).  Occasionally it would create two files
with the same name in a single directory.  Several other ST owners that
I know have reported similar problems, by not frequently.  The problem
seems to occur more with smaller files (< 1K), like shell scripts.  To
avoid this problem, I implemented a creat() call in dLibs which always
deletes the file before creating it, as shown by the source code I posted.
Since Fdelete() is relatively quick and Fcreat() is quite slow, the extra
time spent deleting the file is hardly noticed.  If anyone knows anything
more about this problem, I'd like to hear about it.

                Dale Schumacher
                ..ihnp4!meccts!stag!syntel!dal
                (alias: Dalnefre')