Reading files from current directory in assembly

[admiral]

Thanks for the comments.

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

A couple of minor comments: The buffer size should probably align with a (multiple) of the block size of the medium. This is of course not strictly necessary, but having a block size aligned may allow the file system to "burst" directly into your buffer instead of copying through a second level buffer. I would suggest 1024 bytes.

I went for $1000 or 4096 or 1024*4 on the code above. It was very arbitrary, but still a multiple of the typical filesystem block payload size.

Also, for a buffer that small you would not need to allocate memory, the stack would be sufficient.

For the purposes of this program, it could be. But I wrote it as a quick way to ensure I knew how to do basic doslib I/O. If I were to reuse code on something larger, I'd want to allocate a buffer.

Stack is typically at least 4KB, but could go much lower. Detecting stack size is also extra work, which does also require different code for Workbench and CLI.

Last but not least, "*" is not deprecated. There is a small subtle difference between CONSOLE: and "*", and without knowing anything else, I would suggest to go for "*". "*" is the current console, "CONSOLE:" is the default console. It doesn't make a difference with CON: right now, but it may make a difference in the future to allow "job control".

Deprecation comment was based on documentation. Specifically, http://amigadev.elowar.com/read/ADCD.../node02D6.html claims:

    The 'name' can be a filename (optionally prefaced by a device
    name), a simple device such as NIL:, a window specification such as
    CON: or RAW: followed by window parameters, or "*", representing the
    current window.  Note that as of V36, "*" is obsolete, and CONSOLE:
    should be used instead.

While I tried to follow that recommendation, it turned out to not work on kick34/AmigaOS 1.3, leaving just "*" as an option.