1 03/06/80  apl_read_segment_ external function
 2 
 3 Function: reads a segment into an apl character value.
 4 
 5 
 6 Usage:
 7    )MFN READ_SEGMENT APL_READ_SEGMENT_
 8    RESULT -^H< READ_SEGMENT 'PATH'
 9 
10 
11 Arguments:
12 PATH
13    is the pathname of the segment to be read. It can be relative or
14    absolute. The bitcount must be set.
15 
16 RESULT
17    is the character value that is returned by the function.
18 
19 
20 Notes:
21 The segment is read in as a character vector, containing as many elements as
22 there are bytes in the segment. Thus, lines are separated by new line
23 characters (octal 012), not the usual apl matrix convention. The qCS system
24 variable may be subscripted to obtain a new line character in a program.
25 
26 While the most useful form is probably to read in text segments, no restriction
27 is placed on the type of data that may be read; any segment is ok.
28 
29 This is the most efficient method for reading data from segments into apl.