Jerry Jensen wrote: > On Sep 9, 2014, at 9:58 AM, jbv at souslelogo.com wrote: > >> Richmond, >> Thanks for your reply. >> Yes, I perfectly understand what happens, but my point is : >> why is it so ? What is the logic behind ? >> Is it specific to LC of is it closely related to the different OSes >> on which LC runs ? >> Why the fact of closing then reopening a file leads to overwriting >> its content ? > > Its held over from deep dark history. Open file meant the operator > should find the tape and mount it on the drive. Close file meant the > tape would be rewound so the operator could take it off the drive and > put it away.
It's more than a historical artifact, offering tremendous flexibility for traversing a file and reading/writing discrete parts of it.
Open for update allows this traversal gracefully, opening the door to a wide range of fairly sophisticated file I/O options, esp. useful for data too large to fit into RAM as a whole.
-- Richard Gaskin Fourth World Systems Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web ____________________________________________________________________ ambassa...@fourthworld.com http://www.FourthWorld.com _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
