From: Erik Max Francis <max AT alcyone DOT com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: Writing a struct to disk
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 19:04:56 -0700
Organization: Alcyone Systems
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firewind wrote:

> Unlike some fortunate people, I don't have a copy of the ANSI standard
> handy,
> but in K&R2, chapter 7, section 1, is is said:
> 
> "A text stream consists of a sequence of lines; each line ends with a
> newline
> character. If the system doesn't operate that way, the library does
> whatever
> is necessary to make it appear as if it does. For instance, the
> library might
> convert carriage return and linefeed to newline on input and back
> again on
> output."
> 
> Someone please correct me if this is not actually garunteed by the
> ANSI
> standard.

This is true in ANSI as well:  If you write out a file in text mode, it
will be translated to the native end-of-line sequences.  Similarly if
you read in a text file with the native end-of-line sequences, it will
be translated to newlines.

However, you are _not_ guaranteed that a text file on one system will
work as a text file on another system.  As such, that hardly makes text
mode "portable" (which was the original poster's claim).

> The only functions is C that -rely- on a certain character set are the
> ctype
> macros. If you read a character into a variable and compare it with a
> certain
> character, the comparison will correctly work for all character sets.

Yes, but the point is that you're not even guaranteed that the newline
will be the same character on two systems.  ANSI C even makes a
distinction between the "source" and "execution" character sets (ANSI
5.2.1).

-- 
          Erik Max Francis, &tSftDotIotE / mailto:max AT alcyone DOT com
                        Alcyone Systems / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
   San Jose, California, United States / icbm://37.20.07n/121.53.38w
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