RE: **IFS**

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Bob Cozzi
>
> I have a question...
> Does anyone want to access IFS files from within RPG?
> I don't just mean by prototyping the C/Unix APIs, but in a robust
> RPG-like manner?
> I'm thinking along the lines of ext files for storing simple values,
> perhaps as a replacement for data areas and control database files.

What do you consider a "robust RPG-like manner"?  RPG supports fixed-format
files.  Stream files don't fit that mold very well, which is why we use the
Unix APIs.  How would you define a file specification?  How would you
address the issue of variables length records?  Would every file have a
single variable-length field?  How would you specify encoding (EBCDIC vs.
ASCII vs. Unicode)?

How would you update a line?  What would happen if you replaced a line that
read "<table>" with one that read "<table class=myclass>"?  Would you expect
all the data following the line to be shifted down in the file?  That would
be quite a trick.

If I were you, I'd start by defining what I wanted my code to look like.  It
seems to me that by the time you write a reasonable syntax for accessing the
data in a stream file that it would look pretty much like the Unix APIs
(which are the same APIs we've been using in DOS, OS/2, Windows and every
other OS that accesses stream files).

Joe