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From: jerry@violet.berkeley.edu ( Jerry Berkman )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Bogosity in Gould FORTRAN?
Keywords: FORTRAN OPEN READ REWIND GOULD
Message-ID: <23873@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 2 May 89 00:44:20 GMT
References: <7863@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <1804@deimos.cis.ksu.edu>
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Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In article <1804@deimos.cis.ksu.edu> mac@harris.cis.ksu.edu (Myron A. Calhoun) writes:
>In article <7863@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> lijewski@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Mike Lijewski) writes:
>> Apparently, Gould decided to OPEN files with the pointer at end of file
>> as the default. ... Gould says that since ANSI didn't explicitly say
>> that the pointer
>>to an OPEN'd file must be at the beginning of the file, that they can
>>do this and still be ANSI.  Any comments?

The ANSI standard does not specify where a file should be opened.

>The (yellow spine) UNIX Programmers Manual contains a similar statement
>regarding "A Portable Fortran 77 Compiler".

I don't see such a statement in my manual.  BSD VAX UNIX f77 opened files
at the end until 1984, at which time it switched to opening files at the
beginning.  Some systems may still open files at the end of file.  I would
be especially careful with System V based systems.

	- Jerry Berkman, U.C. Berkeley
	  jerry@violet.berkeley.edu