Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 21:41:45 JST
From: Stephen Turnbull <turnbull AT shako DOT sk DOT tsukuba DOT ac DOT jp>
To: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Subject: Line terms; UNIX v. DOS; opinions wanted (was: Info port...)


Eli, you're completely missing the point.  If somebody mucks with
their info files with an editor (such as DEmacs in the configuration
I've got, and many Micro-Squishy DOS editors) that converts <NL> into
<CRLF>---eg, to add Supercite (tm) to their Info tree, they're going
to screw up their tag tables.
    This is something that you as programmer can't do anything about.
It's something that "careless Unix programmers that don't care about
'foolish' OS's like DOS" *can't* do anything about (not even if they
*wanted to*).  It's something that is a true portability problem, like
converting Pascal strings to C strings.  And it just so happens to be
automagically (as you say) fixed by the "if your Info files are
screwed, (1) make sure the environment points to them, (2) run
dos2unix in the Info directory" rule of thumb.
    Except, unfortunately, as peprvb "Bob Babcock" points out, this
breaks some of the Info files which have CRs in them.  Except that,
fortunately, none of these are split with tag tables (I think).
    "You gotta pay your dues
     If you wanna sing the blues
     [And porting just] don't come easy."
    with apologies to "Richard Starkey"
                               <Ringo DOT Starr AT Concert DOT For DOT BanglaDesh DOT NET>

    --Steve