Using NS3000/iX Network Services (36920-90008)

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3 Remote File Access
The Remote File Access service (RFA) allows you to access remote files
and devices. By using RFA you can, among other things, create, open,
read, write, and close a file that resides on a remote HP 3000. Since the
remote “file” may be a peripheral device, you can, for example, read
from a tape mounted on a remote system or print local data on a remote
printer.The Remote File Access facility uses the same MPE/iX file
system intrinsics as are employed on a local system. The intrinsics are
sent to the remote environment and executed there. Your local program
can call these intrinsics explicitly or it can use the input/output
procedures specific to the language in which the program is written.
You can also access a remote file or device interactively. You will find
discussions of interactive and programmatic remote file access methods
later in this chapter.
Limitations Following are RFA limitations:
1. RFA does not permit nowait (asynchronous) I/O.
2. RFA only works with filenames in the traditional MPE namespace.
It does not work with filenames in the HFS (POSIX-compliant)
namespace. RFA does not recognize HFS directories or filenames
that contain slashes as directory diameters. For example, it will not
work properly with filenames such as “/FILEa,” or
“/usr/include/stdio.h.”
3. RFA only works with traditional MPE record-oriented files; that is
files with fixed (F), variable (V), or undefined (U) record types. It
does not work with files that have the POSIX-compliant, bytestream
(B) or directory (H) types.