Maybe a problem in binary read/write (PR#1688)

[ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk]

On Thu, 20 Jun 2002, Johnny Accot wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Prof Brian D Ripley wrote:
> > Not a bug: check the documentation of file(), which is documented to work
> > for files but not for devices.  No attempt is made to cope with e.g.
> > blocking on non-files.
> >
> > It's a pretty extreme view of the world to consider /dev/psaux to be a
> > file, and R is just using standard C <stdio.h> I/O.
> >
> > However, this is a great opportunity for you to contribute a device()
> > function to R.
>
> I finally checked the code and "wrote" the functions to "handle devices".
> Well, in fact I more or less duplicated the code for FIFOs, removed the
> option for encoding, added an option for synchronous I/O, and added a
> test to check that the file is indeed a character or block special file.
> This works great for me but I'm afraid it is a bit simple and does not
> cover much of device handling in general.  Especially I don't know if
> anybody would want to use it for block devices, and what they would need.
> The psaux device is one of the simplest device one could think of, that's
> why it works so well.  For other devices one would need at least an
> ioctl function, which I didn't write.  But still I have no idea whether
> anybody would use it and what for.  Anyway.  Please let me know if you
> think this is useful.  If yes, I will try to familiarize myself with
> the structure of the R code and make the device handling more general.

Yes, I do think it would be useful, but I know little about it,
Thank you for the offer.

>
> Thanks,
> Johnny
>

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595


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