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Sequential Access

The simplest access method is Sequential Access. Information in the file is processed in order, one record after the other. This mode of access is by far the most common; for example, editors and compilers usually access files in this fashion.

The bulk of the operations on a file is reads and writes. A read operation reads the next portion of the file and automatically advances a file pointer, which tracks the I/O location. Similiarly, a write appends to the end of the file and advances to the end of the newly written material (the new end of file).