RFC 1037 (rfc1037) - Page 3 of 86

NFILE - a file access protocol

RFC 1037             NFILE - A File Access Protocol        December 1987


       11.3  Token List Data Stream                                   72

   12.  BYTE STREAM WITH MARK                                         73

       12.1  Discussion of Byte Stream with Mark                      73
       12.2  Byte Stream with Mark Abortable States                   75

   13.  POSSIBLE FUTURE EXTENSIONS                                    77

   APPENDIX A.  NORMAL TRANSLATION MODE                               79

   APPENDIX B.  RAW TRANSLATION MODE                                  83

   APPENDIX C.  SUPER-IMAGE TRANSLATION MODE                          84

   NOTES                                                              86

                              LIST OF TABLES

   TABLE 1.    TRANSLATIONS FROM NFILE CHARACTERS TO UNIX CHARACTERS  80
   TABLE 2.    TRANSLATIONS FROM UNIX CHARACTERS TO NFILE CHARACTERS  80
   TABLE 3.    TRANSLATIONS FROM NFILE TO PDP-10 CHARACTERS           81
   TABLE 4.    TRANSLATIONS FROM PDP-10 CHARACTERS TO NFILE           82
               CHARACTERS
   TABLE 5.    SUPER-IMAGE TRANSLATION FROM NFILE TO ASCII            84
   TABLE 6.    SUPER-IMAGE TRANSLATION FROM ASCII TO NFILE            85

1.  INTRODUCTION

   NFILE stands for "New File Protocol".  NFILE was originally designed
   as a replacement for an older protocol named QFILE, with the goal of
   solving robustness problems of QFILE, hence the name "New File
   Protocol".

   NFILE was designed and implemented at Symbolics by Bernard S.
   Greenberg.  Mike McMahon made important contributions, especially in
   the design and implementation of the Byte Stream with Mark and Token
   List Transport layers.  NFILE has been used successfully for file
   access between Symbolics computers since 1985.  NFILE servers have
   been written for UNIX hosts as well.  NFILE is intended for use by
   any type of file system, not just the native Symbolics file system.

   NFILE is a file access protocol that supports a large set of
   operations on files and directories on remote systems, including:

            - Reading and writing entire files
            - Reading and writing selected portions of files
            - Deleting and renaming files



Greenberg & Keene