OpenEuphoria

Re: HELP with 'seek'

• Posted by Robert Craig <rds at ATTCANADA.NET> Aug 18, 2000
• 489 views

Jim writes:
> I'm having a problem in using the 'seek' function...
> ...DataFile = open(fullpath,"r") -- open for reading

When you use seek(), you have to keep track of
byte offsets within a file very carefully.
Opening a file as "r" (read in text mode) is going to
cause you no end of trouble. It would be better to
open the file as "rb" (read in binary mode) and realize
that each line of text (each record)
normally ends with two characters: \r\n.

I believe seek() looks at all the characters in the file,
whereas gets() will only "see" \n, not \r\n as is actually
stored in the file.

The division of I/O on DOS/Windows into "text" vs.
"binary" modes was completely unnecessary, and
has caused confusion for many years. I guess it
was a quick kludge to make some IBM printer
work better, back in the early 80's.

Regards,
   Rob Craig
   Rapid Deployment Software
   http://www.RapidEuphoria.com