[comp.unix.questions] How to work with tape drives?

jdubb@bucsf.bu.edu (jay dubb) (04/05/91)

   I am posting this for a friend of mine who doesn't have access
to USENET, so please respond directly to mlevin@jade.tufts.edu.

   What should I use, in C under BSD 4.3 Unix, to access tape drives
from a C program? I am looking for the standard open file, read, write,
rewind, etc. functions. The only place I see this in the manual is in
the 3F section - fortran 77 calls. Are these supposed to be used by C
programs also? Or, is there a special library of tape calls for C
programs? And, does tape IO under unix support multiple files on a
tape, or is it raw (bytes only, interpret them however you want)?
Or, does the stdio package handle tapes as well? Please enlighten me
about tapes on Unix systems. Please reply directly to me, as I do not
have USENET access.
					Mike Levin (mlevin@jade.tufts.edu)