From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Wed Oct 22 2003 - 10:22:35 CST
On 22/10/2003 08:36, John Cowan wrote:
>Peter Kirk scripsit:
>
>
>
>>But if two files each consist of one or more lines of text separated by
>>LS (but with no final LS), when they are concatenated, surely LS must be
>>added as a separator. Similarly with paragraphs and PS.
>>
>>
>
>But your protasis is a petitio principii. Files may or may not consist of
>lines of text: a file may contain less than one line.
>
>
>
>>Way to avoid this absurd conclusion: redefine LS and PS
>>as line and paragraph terminators, to be used at end of file when (as is
>>normal) this corresponds to a line or paragraph end.
>>
>>
>
>No doubt this is the de facto position. (The *true* de facto position,
>of course, is not to use LS or PS at all.)
>
>
>
Well, perhaps this needs to be read as disproof by reductio ad absurdum.
I have shown it to be absurd to consider files to consist of one or more
lines of text separated by LS, most obviously because it becomes
impossible to tell whether the last line is intended to be complete or
not. But Kent did imply this model of file structure when he wrote "And
LS it's a separator, not a terminator, so EOF has to be a line terminator."
But according to Kent's latest posting (my emphasis), "The *first* and
last lines in a text file may well be partial." How can one tell, in any
encoding, whether the first line is partial? And it seems that, in a
file where LS is used as a separator not a terminator, EOF is a line
terminator except when it isn't.
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/
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