[comp.os.vms] files in fortran

tedcrane@TCGOULD.TN.CORNELL.EDU.UUCP (04/13/87)

In article <12293420478.19.STEINBERGER@KL.SRI.COM> STEINBERGER@KL.SRI.COM (Richard Steinberger) writes:
>I'd like to allow a program (in FORTRAN) to open a new file and occasionally
>write some text to it.

The key word is "occasionally".  You can open the file for append, write your
occasional text to it, and close it again.  In between, the file is available
to other users.

This technique is not recommended if "occasionally" is "frequently".  The
overhead due to opening and closing the file will exceed the time taken to
actually write data into the file, with the result that your program (and the
system) will run quite a bit more slowly.

BRUCE@UC780.BITNET.UUCP (04/16/87)

Re: files in fortran.
When you say that you want other people to be able to type it
while the program is still running I thought of batch jobs and how
you can type out their log files while they are still running.
After looking at the rms manual for a while, I tried SYS$FLUSH
on the RAB each time after I wrote to it (especially since you
only do i/o to it once in a while) and it worked (it ended up just
like the log files for batch jobs.)  To get the RAB you need to
use the useropen parameter on the fortran open statement, and
therefore, need to look at the fortran docs to find out about that
since I don't have the code handy right now.

        bruce