Bug on Python2.3.4 [FreeBSD]?

[Terry Reedy]

"Donn Cave" <donn at drizzle.com> wrote in message 
news:1123906696.459433 at yasure...
> Quoth "Terry Reedy" <tjreedy at udel.edu>:
> | Standard C, by Plauger & Brodie says that 'a' plus whatever else means 
> all
> | writes start at the current end-of-file.
>
> Of course, but the question was, where do reads start?

For 'a+', that book, and perhaps the standard, does not specify where an 
*initial* read starts.  It only says file position is set to end-of-file 
'before each write' and that reads after a write (and vice versa) 'must' 
follow an intervening file-positioning call (fflush, fseek, fsetpos, 
rewind).

> guess the GNU C library "innovated" on this point.

If there is a hole in the standard, 'innovation' is required.

Terry J. Reedy