kinmonthprep@deneb.ucdavis.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) (01/17/89)
What is a "fool proof" way of telling whether a program is writing to its own input under MSDOS? Under **IX, oneALMOST certain way is to compare i-node numbers. If they are the same you are feeding on yourself. Since MSDOS lacks i-node numbers (at lots of other things), how can you be certain you are not eating your own output? File name comparions are NOT particularly good because there are too many ways to write the same name, even without considering case, such as file .\file full_path\file etc.
kneller@cgl.ucsf.edu (Don Kneller) (01/20/89)
In article <3505@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> kinmonthprep@deneb.ucdavis.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) writes: >What is a "fool proof" way of telling whether a program is writing to >its own input under MSDOS? > >File name comparions are NOT particularly good because there are too >many ways to write the same name. One possibility is to compare the filenames, sans path components, and the file times, dates, sizes and attributes. If all are the same, then chances are, the files are the same (or copies). You could determine if the files are copies by making some change to the output file (for example, change its date or attributes) and seeing if the input file reflects that changes. Buffering of directories might be a problem, but I suspect not. - don ----- Don Kneller UUCP: ...ucbvax!ucsfcgl!kneller INTERNET: kneller@cgl.ucsf.edu BITNET: kneller@ucsfcgl.BITNET