The following code:
(device (open "myfile" "a"))
(print "This goes in myfile")
(close (device))
(exit)
fails with: value expected : (open "myfile" "a")
when the file "myfile" doesn't exist.
If you use (on Unix):
#touch myfile
And rerun the code above, it works as expected.
I would expect that a file opened for appending with "a"
or "append" would not require preexistence of the
file to start writing to it. This is the common usage,
at least on Unix systems.
I agree, added an O_CREAT flag to append mode in version 8.5.5
Lutz