From: marcov@stack.nl   
      
   On 2005-02-06, HansO  wrote:   
   > Marco van de Voort  wrote:   
   >   
   >>On 2005-02-05, Bill Leary  wrote:   
   >>> The limitations, especially the "open only once" are artificial and   
   >>> intended to highlight a perceived feature of C's standard library.  In   
   >>> Pascal, if I really needed to access the file both ways at the same time   
   >>> (and I'd need to be convinced it was necessary), I'd either open it twice,   
   >>> once each way, or open it as binary then whomp up my own line and   
   >>> character read routines.  Which choice would depend on the higher   
   >>> necessities of the program.   
   >>   
   >>Still, I always wondered what the benefit was of having separate assign   
   >>and reset/rewrite procedures. A legacy thing I guess.   
   >   
   > Must be. Something analog to the Job Control Language or whatever the   
   designer   
   > was accustomed to on the mainframe at that moment. Perhaps  separate the real   
   > file name (assign) from the name in the program (reset/rewrite). Like the   
   > program name(input, output) construction. Very common in the mainframe/mini   
   > systems. Those were the days of card decks!   
      
   I think it might have to do with internal files. However I'm not deep enough   
   into   
   ISO pascal to know that exactly.   
      
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