Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watdcsu.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watdcsu!herbie From: herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong - DCS) Newsgroups: net.lang Subject: Re: What language do you use for scientific programming? Message-ID: <1621@watdcsu.UUCP> Date: Tue, 20-Aug-85 10:29:37 EDT Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1621 Posted: Tue Aug 20 10:29:37 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 00:06:52 EDT References: <909@oddjob.UUCP> <163@ho95e.UUCP> <367@ttrdc.UUCP> <1612@watdcsu.UUCP> <371@ttrdc.UUCP> Reply-To: herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong - DCS) Organization: U of Waterloo Lines: 39 Summary: In article <371@ttrdc.UUCP> levy@ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy) writes: >Actually, Unix' f77 allows byte input to be done on any file which can be >seeked upon--you do something like > > character abyte > integer n > open(unit=1,file='foo.bar',access='direct',form='unformatted', > + recl=1) > n=[whatever] > read [write] (unit=1,rec=n,err=nnn)abyte > >but this will bomb on a system like VMS when the type of file you are trying >to input from (output to) was created with a different structure. It is also >impossible to do this on terminal I/O, or on standard input/output. It would >be nice if you could mix different types of access with different file struc- >tures and have the I/O routines deal with this in a sane manner. Then you >could have your bytes and eat them too :-). this is only workable, as you point out, on a system where you can open files with arbitrary attributes like unix. on systems where the underlying filesystem is record oriented, doing this requires a lot of runtime library support. many fortran 77 implementations would disallow the open statement changing the record length at execution time. if portability is not an issue, then there should be no problem, but then why not use C to begin with, if the mathematical library is adequate. i avoid fortran like the plague, despite it being the first programming language i learned and will use PL/I for the application rather than put up with the limited control structures and I/O facilities of fortran. even pascal is fine if you don't need separate compilation and the math library is adequate. Herb Chong... I'm user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble.... UUCP: {decvax|utzoo|ihnp4|allegra|clyde}!watmath!water!watdcsu!herbie CSNET: herbie%watdcsu@waterloo.csnet ARPA: herbie%watdcsu%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa NETNORTH, BITNET, EARN: herbie@watdcs, herbie@watdcsu