The communicator defines the set of processes that are opening the file, right?
I know that you are not arguing that we should eliminate the communicator
argument, since clearly it is needed, so I must confess that I still don't
understand your objection. Internally, the different processes that are
cooperating to open the file (and therefore to create the file object) will in
general need some way to communicate with each other as part of the OPEN. So it
seems perfectly logical to me that a comminucator should be the base object.
-- Eric Salo Silicon Graphics salo@sgi.com