Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!oliveb!apple!mattd
From: mattd@Apple.COM (Matt Deatherage)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: System file load address
Keywords: auxtypes
Message-ID: <27533@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 19 Mar 89 02:19:09 GMT
References: <8903181916.AA05810@crash.cts.com>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 42

In article <8903181916.AA05810@crash.cts.com> pnet01!pro-beagle!jerryk@nosc.mil writes:
>By using the pathname at $280, a SYS file can read and set its own auxtype...
>might be useful for programs that need to save a few little bits of
>information back to their own file.  Use the auxtype instead of opening and
>writing the file... much faster.
>
>I don't think there are any reserved auxtypes within the SYS filetype, but if
>there are, I imagine I will hear about it for the above suggestion.  :)
>
How did you guess?  :-)

I haven't published a File Type Note talking about $FF files yet, but I wrote
one last summer as a "test case" - something to get the idea of FT Notes
approved.  In it, I wrote something like this:

"The auxtype of SYS files is currently available for application use, but
probably won't be of much interest to most programmers.  To use it, a program
would have to take the pathname stored at $280 when the program is launched 
(making sure nothing has overwritten it), use it as input to a GET_FILE_INFO
call, and alter it with a SET_FILE_INFO call.  A lot of trouble to obtain a
two-byte storage space."

Also note that S16 and EXE files ($B3 and $B5) are NOT this way; the auxtypes
of those two file types are currently reserved for future definition.
 
>- Jerry Kindall
>
(Did I mention that I just finished a book that had the word "Microdot" in
a chapter title?  Even had a picture of one.)
 
>crash!pnet01!pro-beagle!jerryk                  GEnie: J.KINDALL
>jerryk@pro-beagle.cts.com                       ALink: JKindall
>jerryk%pro-beagle.cts.com@nosc.mil
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