fopen ( ..., "a" ) --- how does the "a" work?

[Thomas Truscott]

> It is important to point out that use of "a" mode is some circumstances
> will not work as anticipated.  ... [problems with NFS noted]

> Had this been a stateful protocol ("append x bytes to file y") and multiple
> requests were delivered, one could easily see a datafile with a bad
> case of the "stutters."

Except of course that stateful protocols invariably have "at most once"
semantics.  Since it is stateful the protocol can easily
detect and discard the duplicate requests.
	Tom Truscott