Stream   built-in function

The Stream function returns the state of, or result of an operation upon, a character stream.

The Stream function is implementation-dependent. This function was not defined prior to Language Level 4.00. Consequently, some Rexx environments may not support the Stream function.

result = Stream( name, [, operation [, command ] ] )

name

the name of the character stream

operation

The operation is one of the following:

  Command -- the command argument identifies a stream operation to perform

  Description -- an implementation-dependent description of the stream's status

  State -- the current status of the stream (Default value of operation argument)

The possible states of a stream are:

   ERROR -- the stream is inaccessible

   NOTREADY -- the stream does not have characters available

   READY -- the stream has characters available

   UNKNOWN -- the stream is not being accessed

When the operation argument is absent, the stream state is returned.

command

a command to perform on the character stream. The syntax and semantics of a stream command are implementation-dependent.

Examples: say Stream( 'file1', 'S' ) -- shows: ERROR, NOTREADY, READY, or UNKNOWN say Stream( 'file1' ) -- shows: ERROR, NOTREADY, READY, or UNKNOWN call Stream 'file1', 'C', 'Close' -- closes the stream (implementation-dependent)