File Handling

Abstract

The computer language designer or implementor (or both) is always presented with a serious problem when he considers how to deal with disk files. It is that the language does not interface directly with the disk (or other mass storage device) at all, but rather with the operating system, whose responsibility it is to get stuff written in a retrievable way. So the problem becomes “How can we talk to any number of idiosyncratic operating systems, whose logical file structures and organization may be quite different, in a completely consistent way?”

“I only meant that I didn’t understand,” said Alice. “Why one to come and one to go?”

“Don’t I tell you?” the King repeated impatiently. “I must have two—to fetch and carry. One to fetch, and one to carry. ”

Through the Looking-Glass