Binary files on 4D machines

[Calvin H. Vu]

In <9008161144.AA07423 at aero4.larc.nasa.gov> blbates at AERO4.LARC.NASA.GOV ("Brent L. Bates AAD/TAB MS361 x42854") writes:


|     We already tried what the FORTRAN release notes say, and it
| doesn't work all the time.  We have a person who made a VERY short
| program to read a file that worked, but when they tried to do
| the same thing in their real program it doesn't work.
	If you can't find anything to prove that "binary" file does not
work then the problem may very well be due to something else.  Making
statement like "my real program doesn't work and it must be due to the
the binary file incompatibility somehow" does not help to get the problem,
if any, resolved.

|     It doesn't seem that much thought went into the "fix".
| If they were going to really fix this they should have kept the
| same syntax as what is used on the 3000's.
| --
The FORM='BINARY' enhancement was implemented in 3.2 release already.  In 3.3 
I thought it would be nice to have a compatible file operation to the 3000 
series FORM='binary' so I put it in.  
(Actually, if you read the Fortran programmers' guide, this binary operation 
was in F77 all along and I only needed to make a few changes to make it work
as documented.  So you were right. Not much thought regarding the syntax
was needed for that "fix")
Sorry to hear that it doesn't have a
convenient form for you since I can no longer use FORM='BINARY' for it.  
Maybe running your program through 'sed' could help to convert one syntax 
to another.

I'll probably make something like FORM='SYSTEM' the equivalent of the 3000
series' FORM='BINARY' in the next release to make it more convenient to
use.   How's that for a compromise ?

| 	Brent L. Bates
| 	NASA-Langley Research Center
| 	M.S. 361
| 	Hampton, Virginia  23665-5225
| 	(804) 864-2854
| 	E-mail: blbates at aero4.larc.nasa.gov or blbates at aero2.larc.nasa.gov

Calvin Vu
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