more on file \"attributes\"

[Sean Casey]

In article <3398 at decwrl.UUCP> jcampbell at mrfort.DEC (Jon Campbell) writes:
>What many users have suggested is that I put a "file header" at the
>beginning of each file. This seems like a reasonable approach, except
>that existing FORTRANs do not put such cruft at the beginning of files
>now. So we have a skew problem. What I was suggesting, though it might
>have not been clear, is an "invisible" file header, one which you look
>at in a slightly different way than the real data (the bytes in the file).

Why not just rewrite part of the fortran I/O library, instead of
rewriting the whole file system, the backup programs, etc.?  Why would
there be problems with that?  Sounds to me like it would be easier, and
save a lot of bucks in man-hours and bug fixing.  Not only that, but if
you did implement your "invisible" file header, you'd have rewrite part
of the I/O library anyway.  Geez, why go to all that trouble?


-- 

-  Sean Casey				UUCP:	sean at ukma.UUCP   or
-  Department of Mathematics			{cbosgd,anlams,hasmed}!ukma!sean
-  University of Kentucky		ARPA:	ukma!sean at ANL-MCS.ARPA