cosell@cosell.bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) (01/06/88)
I _must_ be missing something -- I have the two-volume Sybex "Amiga Programming Manual" (*not* Rob Peck's one-volume one). On the whole I've found it to be a fine, reasonably organized, reasonably complete manual. BUT... over the weekend I wanted to do something real simple: I wanted to find the creation date of a disk file. Just a simple "fstat" for you Unix-folk. So I look and look and look. Nothing. Then it occurs to me: I couldn't find ANY of the "basic" calls: open, close, read, write, seek, etc. Can it _really_ be the case that those aren't included. If so, that seems like an *astonishing* oversight!! If not, I'll surely appreciate the pointers to the corner of the manual that I missed. Thanks __ / ) Bernie Cosell /--< _ __ __ o _ BBN Labs, Cambridge, MA 02238 /___/_(<_/ (_/) )_(_(<_ cosell@bbn.com
papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) (01/06/88)
In article <19644@bbn.COM> cosell@bbn.com.UUCP (Bernie Cosell) writes: > >I _must_ be missing something -- I have the two-volume Sybex "Amiga >Programming Manual" (*not* Rob Peck's one-volume one). On the whole I've >found it to be a fine, reasonably organized, reasonably complete manual. >BUT... over the weekend I wanted to do something real simple: I wanted >to find the creation date of a disk file. Just a simple "fstat" for >you Unix-folk. So I look and look and look. Nothing. Mortimore's book does NOT include DOS calls. If you have MANX 3.4b, it comes with a stat() call almost identical to UNIX (the date is off by 8 years, though). -- Marco
rap@dana.UUCP (Rob Peck) (01/07/88)
In article <19644@bbn.COM>, cosell@cosell.bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes: > > I _must_ be missing something -- I have the two-volume Sybex "Amiga > Programming Manual" (*not* Rob Peck's one-volume one). On the whole I've > found it to be a fine, reasonably organized, reasonably complete manual. > BUT... over the weekend I wanted to do something real simple: I wanted > to find the creation date of a disk file. Just a simple "fstat" for > you Unix-folk. So I look and look and look. Nothing. Then it occurs to > me: I couldn't find ANY of the "basic" calls: open, close, read, write, seek, > etc. Can it _really_ be the case that those aren't included. If so, > that seems like an *astonishing* oversight!! If not, I'll surely > appreciate the pointers to the corner of the manual that I missed. > Thanks I had spoken to Mortimore and he said that he had indeed organized enough material to have created a Volume III of his book series. (I believe in full manuscript form, not just in outline form). Unfortunately market pressures (ie. Amiga books just not selling fast enough) did not warrant SYBEX investing in any more Amiga books for a while (especially techinically oriented ones). I don't know if that third manuscript contained the AmigaDOS calls Bernie was looking for (I strongly suspect that is the case, but cannot remember for sure). But in that event, I'd suggest that he does get my book for the AmigaDOS coverage, in that it contains several examples, with an entire chapter devoted to it. My primary lack of coverage is in the area of sending DOS packets and most things that I myself needed to do could be done without them. A few months back, I had provided Sybex with an outline for Volume II of my own book, which would have included an advanced version of the Audiotools, advanced GelTools, more on Workbench and so on, many more topics to make the developers job easier (tools, tools, tools, I always say). But I did not pursue it to the extent that Mortimore did. A coupla months ago (maybe 4), I proposed the creation of yet another book. This one was to be directed towards the owner of a single-drive Amiga and would cover the user-AmigaDOS topics the way the AmigaDOS manual shoulda done. But that project, too, was uninteresting to large publishers. I did not give up on that one though - I have the manuscript over 50% completed and am working out the contract with a publisher of an Amigazine. What can I say, but "RSN". Rob Peck ...ihnp4!hplabs!dana!rap