At 14:52 -0400 8/25/07, Donna Jones wrote:
>I wonder what inconsistent line endings are.  maybe it had them but don't know.

Inconsistent in this context means that the file uses a plurality of ending 
character or character pairs.

One example is a BBEdit worksheet which is in plist format (XML) with the text 
of the worksheet file enclosed in an XML tag. The plist uses ASCII 0A line ends 
but the large item, within the tag, uses ASCII 0D.  BBEdit, as a text editor, 
cannot open the file.

I find lots of other examples of "inconsistent" files because I have to work 
with text files that come from the likes of electronic instruments which use 
whatever they like. They then get transmitted using FTP in ASCII mode which 
does whatever it likes. When you concatenate such files it's a real mess for 
BBEdit which just doesn't understand. When you save a file using BBEdit it WILL 
be consistent even if it doesn't represent what the original writer had in mind.

A sure fire way is to use MPW on this 8500 which will work with whatever is 
passed to it without insisting on changing everything to 0D during an initial 
read into memory. You, the user, can control what happens with a script.

I have created an AppleScript app that allows me to muck with line ends and 
might be helpful to you.

<ftp://ftp.macnauchtan.com/Software/LineEnds/FixEndsFolder.sit>  (52 kB)

It does not (yet) handle the two new 16 bit unicode line ends that exist. It 
does examine a new, to you, file that may contain "inconsistent" endings.

And a bit off topic:

0A is a new line character which once meant advance the paper into blank space 
below.  0D is a command to move the carriage to the left side of the paper 
without advancing the paper. In the really old world of teletype machines one 
had to request the motions separately and you also had to supply a couple of 
null characters if the receiving machine was too slow for the baud rate. In 
some cases sending the 0A before the 0D was faster.  You could also play games 
by sending a 0D without a subsequent 0A. The next printing would overlay the 
last and it was possible to create pictures that way. Creating a Greek phi by 
overlaying a 0 with a / character was common.

"Inconsistent" line endings were the rule in those days.

And try using the progress bar delivered by curl in a BBEdit worksheet. Curl 
backspaces over the previous line so that it overwrites once every second in 
Terminal.app. BBEdit just adds hundreds of lines into a worksheet probably 
because of "inconsistent" line ends..

-- 
-->  The best programming tool is a soldering iron <--

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------
Have a feature request? Not sure the software's working correctly?
If so, please send mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not to the list.
List FAQ: <http://www.barebones.com/support/lists/bbedit_talk.shtml>
List archives: <http://www.listsearch.com/BBEditTalk.lasso>
To unsubscribe, send mail to:  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Reply via email to