MBKFOPEN(3)						       MBK UTILITY FUNCTIONS						       MBKFOPEN(3)

NAME

       mbkfopen - open a file with several search pathes

ORIGIN

       This  software  belongs	to  the  ALLIANCE CAD SYSTEM developed by the ASIM team at LIP6 laboratory of Universite Pierre et Marie CURIE, in
       Paris, France.

       Web : http://asim.lip6.fr/recherche/alliance/
       E-mail : alliance-users@asim.lip6.fr

SYNOPSYS

       #include "mut.h"
       FILE *mbkfopen(name, extension, mode)
       char *name, *extension, *mode;

PARAMETERS

       name		   Name of the file to be opened

       extension	   Extension to the file name

       model		   File opening mode

DESCRIPTION

       mbkfopen opens a file, searching it through the pathes given in the environment variables MBK_CATA_LIB(1) and  MBK_WORK_LIB(1).	 Its  main
       issue is to enable simple file access for any program that works with mbk path environment variables.
       The  file  to be opened is called name.extension, if extension is not NULL, else it is name. If extension is the empty string, "", then the
       file name will be name. .
       The legal values for mode are

       READ_TEXT	   opens for reading

       WRITE_TEXT	   discards and opens for writting
			   since disk access should be a straight forward operation knowing mbk's needs.

       The search algorithm depends on the value of mode.  If mode is WRITE_TEXT, then the file is open for writting in MBK_WORK_LIB(1).  If  mode
       is  READ_TEXT  then  the  file  is  first  searched  through  MBK_WORK_LIB(1),  and  if	not  found,  through  each  directory specified in
       MBK_CATA_LIB(1), in the order of declaration under unix.  No internal hash table is generated, in order to let the user choose  its  direc-
       tory  priority.	 As  soon  as the file is found, it is opened.	There is no check for redundant files in the specified pathes, since it is
       neither illegal nor bad to have many files with the same names.

RETURN VALUE

       mbkfopen returns a pointer to the opened file.  If the file read or write access are violated, or the file not found,  a  NULL  pointer	is
       returned.

ERROR

       "*** mbk error *** mbkfopen : unknown file opening mode mode"
	      The mode parameter is not one of the two legal values.

EXAMPLE

       #include "mut.h"
       #include "mph.h"
       phfig_list *load_vti_ph(name)
       char *name;
       {
       FILE *file;
	  if ((file = mbkfopen(name, "cp", READ_TEXT)) == NULL) {
	     (void)fprintf(stderr, "Pfhhh, can't open name.cp
");
	     EXIT();
	  }
	  ph_parse(file);
       }

SEE ALSO

       mbk(1), MBK_CATA_LIB(1), MBK_WORK_LIB(1), loadlofig(3), loadphfig(3), savelofig(3), savephfig(3), fopen(3).

BUG REPORT

       This tool is under development at the ASIM department of the LIP6 laboratory.
       We need your feedback to improve documentation and tools.

ASIM
/LIP6							  October 1, 1997						       MBKFOPEN(3)