Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!ucsd!rutgers!apple!well!shf
From: shf@well.UUCP (Stuart H. Ferguson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: DOS questions
Summary: How do you tell if a file is seekable?
Keywords: DOS seek IFF
Message-ID: <7066@well.UUCP>
Date: 9 Sep 88 19:21:44 GMT
Reply-To: shf@well.UUCP (Stuart H. Ferguson)
Organization: The Blue Planet
Lines: 22


Here's a weird question:

When writing IFF files, it's important to know if the file you're
writing to is "seekable," that is, the file can be randomly accessed. 
Disk files are seekable, but pipes may not be.  So the question is,
given a DOS FileHandle (or filename or something) is there a way to tell
if the file is seekable? 

For example, the file "df0:foo" is, and the file "pipe:foo" is not.  Any 
way to tell this in general?  Is there a way to query the handler, for 
example?

Also, what happens if you try to seek on a pipe?  An error?  A Guru?  Or 
does it work sometimes and not others?

Any info appreciated.  The sooner we can get all these little details 
ironed out, the sooner there will be an iff.library.

Thanx.
-- 
		Stuart Ferguson		(shf@well.UUCP)
		Action by HAVOC		(shf@Solar.Stanford.EDU)