The EXTEND procedure opens an existing file, positions the file
buffer after the last component, and prepares it for writing.
It is commonly used to append to a file.
Syntax:
EXTEND( file_variable [[, file_name]]
[[, ERROR := error-recovery]] );
The 'file_variable' is the name of the file variable associated
with the output file.
The 'file_name' is the name of the file to be associated with
the 'file_variable'. If the file was opened with the OPEN
procedure, the 'file_name' is ignored.
The 'error-recovery' is the action to be taken if an error
occurs during execution of the routine.
The file can be in any mode before EXTEND is called to set the
mode to generation. If the file is an external file and is not
already open, EXTEND opens it using the defaults for the OPEN
procedure.
After execution of EXTEND, the file is positioned after the last
component, and EOF and UFB return TRUE. If the file does not
exist, EXTEND does not create it, but returns an error at run
time.
A call to EXTEND on a relative file opened for direct access
positions the file after its last existing component.
A call to EXTEND on an indexed file opened for random access by
key positions the file after the last component relative to the
primary key.
See the "HP Pascal Language Reference Manual" for a complete
description of the EXTEND procedure.