functions in std.i - o

             f= open(filename)  
          or f= open(filename, filemode)  
          or f= open(filename, filemode, errmode)  
 
     opens the file FILENAME according to FILEMODE (both are strings).  
     If ERRMODE is non-nil and non-zero, fail by returning nil F,  
     otherwise failure to open or create the file is a runtime error.  
     To use ERRMODE to check for the existence of a file:  
        if (open(filename,"r",1)) file_exists;  
	else file_does_not_exist;  
     The return value F is an IOStream (or just stream for short).  When  
     the last reference to this return value is discarded, the file will  
     be closed.  The file can also be explicitly closed with the close  
     function.  The FILEMODE determines whether the file is to be  
     opened in read, write, or update mode, and whether writes are  
     restricted to the end-of-file (append mode).  FILEMODE also  
     determines whether the file is opened as a text file or as a  
     binary file.  FILEMODE can have the following values, which are  
     the same as for the ANSI standard fopen function:  
        "r"     - read only  
        "w"     - write only, random access, existing file overwritten  
	"a"     - write only, forced to end-of-file,  
	        existing file preserved  
	"r+"    - read/write, random access, existing file preserved  
	"w+"    - read/write, random access, existing file overwritten  
	"a+"    - read/write, reads random access,  
	        writes forced to end-of-file, existing file preserved  
	"rb"  "wb"  "ab"  "r+b"  "rb+"  "w+b"  "wb+"  "a+b"  "ab+"  
	        without b means text file, with b means binary file  
     The default FILEMODE is "r" -- open an existing text file for  
     reading.  
     The read and write functions perform I/O on text files.  
     I/O to binary files may be performed explicitly using the save  
     and restore functions, or implicitly by using the stream variable  
     F as if it were a data structure instance (e.g.- f.x refers to  
     variable x in the binary file f).  

builtin function, documented at i0/std.i   line 1151  

 open102  
 
keyword,  defined at i0/std.i   line 1792  

             file= openb(filename)  
          or file= openb(filename, clogfile)  
 
     open the existing file FILENAME for read-only binary I/O.  
     (Use updateb or createb, respectively, to open an existing file  
      with read-write access or to create a new file.)  
     If the CLOGFILE argument is supplied, it represents the structure  
     of FILENAME in the Clog binary data description language.  
     After an openb, the file variable may be used to extract variables  
     from the file as if it were a structure instance.  That is, the  
     expression "file.var" refers to the variable "var" in file "file".  
     A complete list of the variable names present in the file may  
     be obtained using the get_vars function.  If the file contains  
     history records, the jt and jc functions may be used to set the  
     current record -- initially, the first record is current.  
     The restore function may be used to make memory copies of data  
     in the file; this will be faster than a large number of  
     references to "file.var".  

interpreted function, defined at i0/std.i   line 1658  

             openb_hooks  
 
     list of functions to be tried by openb if the file to be  
     opened is not a PDB file.  By default,  
       openb_hooks= _lst(_not_pdbf, _not_cdf).  
     The hook functions will be called with the file as argument  
     (e.g.- _not_cdf(file)), beginning with _car(openb_hooks), until  
     one of them returns 0.  Note that a hook should return 0 if it  
     "recognizes" the file as one that it should be able to open, but  
     finds that the file is misformatted (alternatively, it could call  
     error to abort the whole process).  

keyword,  defined at i0/std.i   line 1911  

             orgsof(object)  
 
     returns a vector of integers describing the dimensions of OBJECT.  
     The format of the vector is [number of dims, origin1, origin2, ...].  
     By default, dimension origins are ignored, but use_origins changes  
     this.  The dimsof function returns the length of each dimension.  
     *** NOTE NOTE NOTE ***  
     Unless use_origins(1) is in effect, orgsof will always return  
     1 for all of the originI in the list.  Thus, whether use_origins(1)  
     is in effect or not, you are guaranteed that x(orgsof(x)(2)) is the  
     first element of x.  

builtin function, documented at i0/std.i   line 348