From:	Hans-Bernhard Broeker <broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Re: strange character in the source code
Date:	18 Nov 2002 12:42:35 GMT
Organization:	Aachen University of Technology (RWTH)
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Thomas Mueller <tmueller AT bluegrass DOT net> wrote:
> Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de) responded:

>> I don't.  But the OP noted that this 0xa0 always occured in conjuntion
>> with SPACE characters.  A mail-client that inserted an a-accent-aigu or
>> whatever letter in front of spaces would be even more broken than
>> what I assumed.  I.e. I gave that mailer some benefit of the doubt...

> Generally in a DOS or OS/2 text editor, ASCII 160 (0xa0) shows as
> lower-case a with acute accent, 

... in *some* of the multitude of codepages, including the ones you're
using.  Quite certainly not in all of them.

> message.  I think 0xa0 is used as a non-line-breaking space, think
> also some other upper-ASCII characters are sometimes used in
> nonstandard ways in email messages.  

That was my original assumption, indeed.  But even then, a mail client
that exports these non-standard characters, unmodified, into a DOS
codepage where 0xa0 means something entirely different, is broken
beyond belief.  It'd be a typical symptom of a half-done port of a
Unix-born program to the DOS environment.



-- 
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.

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