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Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2006 14:36:07 -0700
From: Joachim Achtzehnter <joachima AT netacquire DOT com>
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Subject: Re: line endings, file path names
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Hi Corinna,

You wrote:

> So, since millions of users have DOS and Mac lineending files, every 
> system in the world has to support them?

I'm not suggesting that any system "has to" do anything, as the author or
funder of a system you can decide what you want it to do. I'm trying to
persuade you that it would be better for its users, and indirectly even for
you because these kind of discussions would go away, if it did.

> Sed does not support CRLF and CR line endings on POSIX systems.

And it can to some extent get away with this because communication programs
like ftp and http clients are supposed to translate line endings to the
native convention when downloading text files from other systems. This
doesn't always work because of user errors and incorrect file types, but on
a native POSIX system one can at least legitimately assume that most files
will have native line endings. In the case of Cygwin such an assumption is
simply not warranted because Cygwin always runs on systems where CRLF is
the native convention.

> It just has a bad hack for Windows systems which is also enabled for
> Cygwin.

It is "bad" only when compared to a possible world without CRLF, but we, at
least most of us, don't have the luxury of living in such a world.

Software developers are often faced with requirements that seem less than
desirable from an aesthetic point of view and we have to get things working
in spite of it. This is one of those cases.

> On other systems you have to take the official route over dos2unix or
> recode or whatever.

As I tried to explain above, at least on those other systems the need for
dos2unix might be the exception instead of the rule. In spite of this,
given that CRLF platforms are now so wide-spread and given how systems are
now so inter-connected, even UNIX users are likely to benefit from text
processing tools that tolerate both conventions, c.f. the pragmatic
approach taken by XML.

> Oh well, the longer this discussion takes, the more I regret my decision
> to revert sed to textmode.

This means my argumentation has been counter-productive. :(

Note, I realize how entrenched the opposite point of view seems to be in
this community and I don't have any illusions of quickly converting
everybody. By sticking to arguments instead of emotions I was trying to
avoid this very reaction of yours. My goal is to plant a thought in the
back of people's minds so that perhaps gradually they might begin to
appreciate my point of view and take it into account a little bit when 
similar calls need to be made again about one detail or another.

Thanks for reading,

Joachim

-- 
work:     joachima AT netacquire DOT com   (http://www.netacquire.com)
private:  joachim AT kraut DOT ca          (http://www.kraut.ca)

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