Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!ncsuvx!mcnc!duke!romeo!gm
From: gm@romeo.cs.duke.edu (Greg McGary)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: String functions in TeX: instr and extract
Message-ID: <15534@duke.cs.duke.edu>
Date: 9 Sep 89 09:26:45 GMT
References: <1989Aug30.133802.15579@cs.dal.ca> <19344@mimsy.UUCP>
Sender: news@duke.cs.duke.edu
Reply-To: gm@romeo.UUCP (Greg McGary)
Organization: Duke University CS Dept.; Durham, NC
Lines: 14

In article <19344@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:
>The only way to test for a file's existence
>is to open it; and open always succeeds.  If the file cannot be opened,
>TeX interacts with its operator to get a different name---and it will
>not take `no name' for an answer!  (I consider this a bug.)

I agree that it's a bug that you can't check for file existence without
opening and risking interaction with TeX, but TeX will take `no name'
for an answer--that's what `null.tex' is for.  When TeX forces you to
type a file-name, type `null' and you can escape!
-- Greg McGary
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