New Issue: IO module: how should we adjust openfp?

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20146, "lydia-duncan", "IO module: how should we adjust openfp?", "2022-07-01T20:00:39Z"

It has the signature:

 proc openfp(fp: _file, hints: iohints = IOHINT_NONE): file throws

And creates a file that points to the C file pointer provided by the fp argument.

Note that _file is a primitive type inserted into the program by the compiler, and represents the C type FILE *. It seems like it would be more appropriate for this type to be an extern type defined in CTypes, if that's something we can do. It probably should also be named c_FILE or C_FILE or c_file in that case.

We think it would be reasonable to keep this function. If _file does get moved to CTypes, should this function also be moved there?

It also seems like this function should be renamed. Similarly to the options proposed by #20143, here are some ideas we came up with:

  • openFP
  • openFp
  • openFilePtr
  • openFilePointer
  • make it a factory function on the file type, e.g. file.fromFP or file.fromFilePtr, since it's already open as a result of how it is obtained?
  • make it an initializer on the file type, for a similar reason?

This function throws a subset of the errors thrown by open (as discussed in #20139). Similar updates should be performed to its documentation.