Fortran vs. Unix File System

[Brandon Allbery]

Expires:

Quoted from <3287 at decwrl.UUCP> ["unix file system"], by jcampbell at mrfort.DEC (Jon Campbell)...
+---------------
| Some of us at Digital think we have found a basic problem with the  UNIX
| file  system  for FORTRAN.  The problem is that there is no place to put
| various kinds of information about  the  contents  of  the  file.   More
| specifically:
|  
	(long list of Fortran and/or ANSI-magtape specific information)
| 
| I would like to propose that UNIX users and  developers  begin  thinking
| about  which  "file  attributes" (knowledge about the file that would be
| useful to know for  generalized  programs  which  cannot  have  previous
| knowledge  about  each  file)  would  be useful to attach to UNIX files.
| 
	(more)
+---------------

How about going by the grand tradition of ar, ld, etc.:

		struct _for_dat {
			short _fd_mag;		/* magic number */
			short _fd_recs;		/* record size */
			short _fd_type;		/* sequential, ISAM, etc. */
			short _fd_cset;		/* 0=ASCII, 1=EBCDIC, etc. */
			short _fd_byte;		/* byte size in bits */
			short _fd_recf;		/* Fixed, Variable, Undefined */
			short _fd_delim;	/* delimiter value */
		};

If the header is a fixed size, you can easily accomodate it, and simple
programs can convert between the two formats.

The type flag might be handled with:

#define FD_FIXED	0	/* fixed _fd_recs-length records, undelimited */
#define FD_DELIM	1	/* fixed _fd_recs-length records, delimited */

#define FD_ASCII	0	/* ASCII carriage control, or none */
#define FD_ANSIC	2	/* ANSI-style carriage control in col 1 */

#define FD_SEQ		0	/* sequential access */
#define	FD_REL		4	/* relative access */
#define FD_ISAM		8	/* ISAM access */
#define FD_UDA		12	/* user-defined access */

Et cetera.  So what's so hard about it?

--bsa
-- 
Brandon Allbery, Unix Consultant -- 6504 Chestnut Road, Independence, OH 44131
decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!bsa; ncoast!bsa at case.csnet; +1 216 524 1416; 74106,1032
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