Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!csrd.uiuc.edu!s41.csrd.uiuc.edu!eijkhout
From: eijkhout@s41.csrd.uiuc.edu (Victor Eijkhout)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: Question about \endlinechar
Message-ID: <1991Feb25.190612.11384@csrd.uiuc.edu>
Date: 25 Feb 91 19:06:12 GMT
References: <1991Feb25.175423.18161@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Sender: news@csrd.uiuc.edu (news)
Organization: UIUC Center for Supercomputing Research and Development
Lines: 25

dmjones@theory.lcs.mit.edu (David M. Jones) writes:

>{\endlinechar=-1
>\openin0=Meyer.tex
>\ifeof0

And there is no need read further.

If you would write
 \openin0=Meyer.tex
 \ifeof0
TeX would see `\openin0=Meyere.tex \ifeof0'
and presumably a space cannot appear in a file name.
Therefore the file name is `Meyer.tex'.

Now, what you wrote gives `\openin0=Meyer.tex\ifeof0 ...'
and the conditional gets evaluated during the scan
of the file name.

>Why should the value of \endlinechar
>affect TeX's judgement of whether the file is empty or not? 

I hope you understand that you've drawn the wrong conclusion?

Victor.