hm, to "open" a file and to "read" a file are completely different operations. Without entering details, you can, for instance, open a file but be totally unable to read it due to bad blocks, etc. :)

ah, thanks...so reading a file would mean opening it with the appropriate program and perhaps additional parameters?

That's a bit more complicated : say you want to work on "file.doc" with OpenOffice. The program will begin with opening the file, which consists of asking Windows whether the file exists, and if this is the case, to grant him access to the file.
Once Windows has granted the access (or denied it, if you're not allowed to read the file, or if the file doesn't exist, etc.), Openoffice will copy every character of the file to its memory, which is the read operation.

As the two operations are done sequentially, someone working on Openoffice would not notice that the are distinct things, but when you're a programmer they are two completely different.

I'm not sure whether I said things clearly, feel free to ask for more info :P

i think, i´ve got it. so you could open a file that has never existed, provoking an error saying "file not found, unable to read" or something similar, perhaps with some number?

exactly yep :)

I think in this context “open” and “read” are acceptable synonyms.

Technically, we don’t know what the author means. Maybe the MacOS software sees the file extension and refuses to OPEN it; how can we know what the author intended to mean?

> i think, i´ve got it. so you could open a file that has never
> existed, provoking an error saying "file not found, unable to
> read" or something similar, perhaps with some number?
No, then the file won’t be opened. Windows adds even more confusion. In Windows, to open a file you should call the function CreateFile. ;)) But I don’t think it’s worth getting into these details.

(Technically, MacOS can both ‘open’ and ‘read’ window files. What the author intended to mean is “I don’t have the software to decode the Windows files”. But, since it’s not Lojban, we don’t have to be so precise)

Now i know again, why i won´t ever get deeper into the IT-stuff. :D