Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!hc!beta!a!jlg
From: jlg@a.UUCP (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: I would like to have an argument, please! (Re: F8X response (long))
Message-ID: <497@a.UUCP>
Date: 1 Mar 88 22:27:53 GMT
References: <705@elxsi.UUCP> <44400017@hcx2> <2337@s.cc.purdue.edu> <2380@s.cc.purdue.edu>
Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M.
Lines: 24
Summary: Library weak


Sounds to me like your I/O library support is the weak link.  There is no 
reason why the I/O library can't make any special system calls necessary
to make a file available dynamically.  Consider the following:

      OPEN(5,file='testfile',status='old')

The semantics of this COULD be: A) see if the file exists locally, if so - 
open it; B) if the file doesn't exist locally, do the special system call
(whatever it is) to attach the any file by that name which may be in the 
non-local name space - then open it; C) if the file still wasn't found,
the OPEN statement fails because STATUS='OLD' couldn't be satisfied.
This interpretation does not contradict the present standard.

I don't use any IBM operating systems, but I assume that there is some 
way to dynamically attach files to the local job stream.  This upgrade
of the OPEN statement would certainly work on CDC systems.

Finally, there is no reason that this same mechanism couldn't be used for 
INCLUDE files or MODULES.  The only reason to blame the operating
system is if the non-local files cannot be attached by any method (even
assembly code) - but I would call this an unacceptable system anyway.

J. Giles 
Los Alamos