I'm trying to write a program that reads in characters from a .dat file that correspond to different colors to be displayed in the LED simulator; x = off, R = red, etc. My problem is, I cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong with opening the .dat file. I've looked around and tried all I can think of, but each time I assemble and run, I get a -1 in $v0 signifying an error. Here's my code for opening/reading/closing the file:
.data
fin: .asciiz "maze1.dat" # filename for input
buffer: .asciiz ""
.text
#open a file for writing
li $v0, 13 # system call for open file
la $a0, fin # board file name
li $a1, 0 # Open for reading
li $a2, 0
syscall # open a file (file descriptor returned in $v0)
move $s6, $v0 # save the file descriptor
#read from file
li $v0, 14 # system call for read from file
move $a0, $s6 # file descriptor
la $a1, buffer # address of buffer to which to read
li $a2, 1024 # hardcoded buffer length
syscall # read from file
# Close the file
li $v0, 16 # system call for close file
move $a0, $s6 # file descriptor to close
syscall # close file
The file maze1.dat is in the same directory as the MIPS program. Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated.