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From: ags@s.cc.purdue.edu (Dave Seaman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: I would like to have an argument, please! (Re: F8X response (long))
Message-ID: <2380@s.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 1 Mar 88 14:46:40 GMT
References: <705@elxsi.UUCP> <44400017@hcx2> <2337@s.cc.purdue.edu> <2359@s.cc.purdue.edu> <713@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Reply-To: ags@s.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (Dave Seaman)
Organization: Purdue University
Lines: 31

In article <713@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
>The original context was INCLUDE statements in Fortran,
>and the claim was that INCLUDE statements should not be part of
>the Fortran standard because there are ***OPERATING SYSTEMS***
>which do not support dynamically named files well.

You are confusing the original context of the discussion with the original
context of my first posting in the discussion.  I repeat that context here,
exactly as I first quoted it in my posting that you responded to:

In article <44400017@hcx2> bill@hcx2.SSD.HARRIS.COM writes:
>Anyway, if what you say is really true, then how could a FORTRAN program
>OPEN a file?  It must be able to do this if it conforms to FORTRAN 77,
>and according to my Cyber FTN200 manual, it can.  I further believe that,
>if there is any operating system in use today that cannot "dynamically"
>open and access files by name, they will either quickly acquire the
>capability or they will not long survive.  Technology marches on.

There is no mention of INCLUDE statements here.  Therefore you simply
misunderstood the context of my remarks.  My original posting made two
points:

	1.  It IS possible to access files "dynamically" in FTN200 under
	    VSOS, but only by resorting to nonstandard system calls.

	2.  It would be preferable to provide for dynamic file access 
	    within standard FORTRAN, but FTN200 is not the only environment
	    that has this problem.  It is shared, for example, by FORTVS2
	    under CMS.
-- 
Dave Seaman	  					
ags@j.cc.purdue.edu