Too Many Open Files (was Re: The CLOSE command)

[Brian K. White]

> Me personally?  I not only close them, I do a write on them beforehand
> if I've changed any data.  I've been told by a few people that this is
> superfluous, but I prefer knowing that it's -absolutely-, -explicitly-
> written with no room for doubt or interpretation.

How is it any better?
It's the very definition of superfluous.
If the definition of close includes write, then what do you gain by doing a 
write?
This implies you don't trust fp to keep it's promise and perform the close 
to spec.
OK that's fine. But then why do you trust fp to keep it's promise to perform 
write any better?
I say, if the language definition states that close will always write, then 
it's silly to waste any time, space, lines of code, cpu cycles, second 
guessing it.
If it ever doesn't do it, then it's broken and the breakage must be 
discovered and fixed.
The write command could just as easily be broken as the close command or any 
other command or feature, so what's the gain?

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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