Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!agate!ucbvax!decwrl!labrea!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!uhnix1!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Proposal for new DOS calls
Message-ID: <2966@sugar.uu.net>
Date: 8 Nov 88 12:14:30 GMT
References: <8811072046.AA04999@postgres.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: Sugar Land Unix - Houston, TX
Lines: 20

In article <8811072046.AA04999@postgres.Berkeley.EDU>, dillon@POSTGRES.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes:
> 	There are several lackings in DOS that make interactive handling of
> file handles difficult.  For one, there is no way to determine whether data
> is pending (e.g. via SER: AUX:, interactive PIPE: etc...) without calling
> Read() or WaitForChar().  Neither of these methods are acceptable as
> both will block or require busy waiting.  

What about the third method? Don't use the standard DOS calls, just send the
packets yourself. Then you can "Wait(1<<IOPort->mp_SigBit | WaitMask)" and
get a notice of completion when it's done.

You wrote a library to do this yourself, Matt. It's not a UNIX way of doing
things, true. It's a very Amiga way of working, though. About the only thing
you'd need dos.library for would be opening the file in the first place.

Be a lot simpler than your set of packets. Surely you can prune them somewhat.
-- 
		    Peter da Silva  `-_-'  peter@sugar.uu.net
		     Have you hugged  U  your wolf today?

	      Disclaimer: My typos are my own damn business.