Initialization, opening and closing catalogues

Every open catalogue is identified to CAT by a catalogue identifier; an INTEGER number with a unique value. The catalogue identifier is subroutine argument CI in the following notes. The ADAM routines (see Section , below) provide an alternative to CAT_TOPEN for opening or creating a catalogue.

CAT_TOPEN (CNAME, STATE, MODE; CI; STATUS)

 
Open a catalogue and obtain an identifier to it.
STATE = one of: NEW or OLD,
MODE = one of: WRITE or READ.

CAT_TRLSE (CI; STATUS)

 
Release a catalogue identifier.

CAT_RSET (CI, ROWS, STATUS)

 
Set the number of rows which a new catalogue is expected to contain. This routine is optional. If used, then it is ignored by some catalogue formats. With others, such as the Small Text List, then the catalogue may be created more efficiently.