Hello Pascal
I've spent the last week,as time allows,trying not to bother
you good people with this. I assume it's an easy question for
experienced people.
What I have compiles and,when run,gives me DOS error 5 - file
access denieghd. (file not open for writting). What I have seems
to folow what my turbo 4 book says(I'm writing in free Pascal)
but won't run.
I'm trying to (eventually) save a list of arrays to disk from
one p'gram and read then with another p'gram.
Turbo seems to imply that this works only with records but I've tried it without. Same difference.
Pertinent parts:

type
box_array = array[0..256]of array[0..2] of smallint;


can = record
carton : box_array;
end;
{************}
var
i,j : smallint;
box : box_array;
canis : can;
canister : file of can;

{**************}

assign(canister,'e:');
reset(canister);
write(canister,canis);
close(canister);
writeln('all on disk');
readln;


assign(canister,'e:');
reset(canister);
read(canister,canis);
close(canister);
writeln('all on disk');
readln;

I assume this is some obvious mistake that I can't get from
my turbo 4 book.
Appreciate any help.
Front one's

It is some simple misteaks that you've made. When assigning a file to disk, you need to have a name not just a disk drive and a path. Plus if you're writing a file, it needs to be rewrite instead of reset.

: assign(canister,'e:');
: reset(canister);
: write(canister,canis);
: close(canister);
: writeln('all on disk');
: readln;

  assign( canister, 'e:\quikcarl.int' );
  rewrite( canister );
  write( canister, canis );
  close( canister );
  writeln( 'all on disk' );
  readln;

Quick indeed.
Thank you very much. I'll try the fix as soon as I can get to it.
I don't doubt that your right but if something has more than two parts I'm likly to get things mixed up. Hope you don't hear from me soon.
Front One's
It's later,It's more.
Demo now works perfectly. Turbo 4 book seems to impley
that typed/untyped file elements must be records. found the
procedure works fine with just the array.
I'll go find more stuff for you guys.
Front one's again.

: Turbo 4 book seems to impley
: that typed/untyped file elements must be records. found the
: procedure works fine with just the array.
:

Forget the Turbo 4 book, is very outdated this days, almost 25 yr old. FP has really good documentation, read that instead.

Hello ATEX
Thanks for the tip. I'll try to find FP documents and look them over.
As I progress,I'm generating a lot of small trial and demo p'grams.
They're really basic noob stuff (as you can tell from my questions) But I've gone all the way back to the begining of time several times (oct 09) and didn't find anything in place that helped me.
I don't think anyone's ever going to ask a question that I can answer with any confidence. Is it resonable to have this sort of "un-question" in the stack - just to have it on record?
A reminder : Play is the only true learning behavior. I'm never desperate for a response.
Front one's