Re: [MacPerl] invisible characters?

["Douglas P. McNutt" <dmcnutt@macnauchtan.com>]

I was wondering, is there
>any difference between a Mac text file and a Unix text file?

Mac TEXT files use a single return character for end of line.
UNIX uses a single newline character
DOS uses a return, linefeed pair.

The Mac has 256 "ASCII" characters, half of which are created with the
option key. They have never caused me problems on Mac's but such characters
are often truncated to 7 bits during transfer. That can cause on of them to
become a control character which can muck up a later transfer in TEXT mode.

The Mac makes extensive use of "paragraph" format in which applications are
expected to wrap text pretty much the way HTML does it except that return
characters are honored when they appear.

"TEXT" transfer programs typically attempt to make adjustments when they
pass files from one environment to another and they often get it wrong.

TEXT ftp is fairly reliable.
BINARY ftp never makes a mistake if you eventually use the file on a machine
of the type in which it was vreated.

Other transfer programs are often disasters.

-> From the USA. The only socialist country that refuses to admit it. <-

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