On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 08:10:45 -0600, Howard Brazee wrote: >Actually, what I want is a single blank line - only if the merged file >is empty, but no blank line if there are data in the merged file. > Why? (Rhetoric; answer that question for yourself, not for me.)
My practice is to depend on analytic continuation to the boundary condition: o If a blank line is not valid data, then no program should produce one, and any program downstream detecting one should properly report an error. o If an empty merged file is a plausible outcome (e.g. no transactions in the processing interval) downstream programs should accept that empty file as valid input. If they produce summary reports, they should report "Input records processed: 0". No need for a blank line. But the producer programs should open and close their output files even when their input files are empty. -- gil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
