Warren Brown
10/30/2003 3:59:00 PM
Morgan,
> I'm trying to write a program that will be writing
> data to an existing file, that will not necessarily
> be done in the physical file order. I used mode
> 'ab+' to open the file, as only the 'a' modes allow
> writing without changing the existing file.
It sounds like what you really want is to open the file with a mode
of 'r+b'. This allows reading and writing of the file without
truncating the file (like 'w+b'). As you mentioned, a mode of 'ab'
opens the file for writing only (at end of file). To open for reading
and writing (at end of file) you would need a mode of 'a+b'. I believe
a mode of 'ab+' is technically incorrect on most platforms, although it
may work on some.
I hope this helps!
- Warren Brown