OpenRead crashes System 7
- To: mathgroup at yoda.physics.unc.edu
- Subject: OpenRead crashes System 7
- From: wmm at chem.wayne.edu (Martin McClain)
- Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 12:01:34 EST
Dear MathGroupers:
I have just found a way to crash Macintosh System 7.1 with the Mma 2.2.1
operator OpenRead. It's not much fun, but here are detailed instructions
for those who might like to try it:
1. Use FileNames["*xxx*",$Path,Infinity] to locate all files in your home
directory that have xxx anywhere in their name. (I assume $Path still has
its automatically initialized value).
2. Use control-t to unformat the return, and copy out the desired
pathname, including its surrounding quote marks. If it is long enough to
have a line continuation in it, take out the \, the carriage return(s), and
any extraneous spaces. Paste it on the right in
dataPath = "<<path from current directory to desired file>>"
3. Verify dataPath with FileDate[dataPath]. When you have the dataPath
correct, the date of last alteration of your data file be returned.
4. Now issue OpenRead[dataPath]. Mma will go into a seemingly endless
loop, it will not abort, the cursor will be dead or disabled, and all you
can do is hit the reset button.
OpenRead["fileNameOnly] does work if you do one of the following:
(1) Prepend to $Path the path to the directory that directly contains the
desired file, or
(2) Use SetDirectory to change the current directory to the subdirectory
that directly contains the desired file. (I find this awkward, since
SetDirectory seems to work only one level at a time. Even DOS did better
than that! But this is a separate complaint...).
Regards- Martin