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From: eijkhout@s41.csrd.uiuc.edu (Victor Eijkhout)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: Question about \endlinechar
Message-ID: <1991Feb26.010926.15767@csrd.uiuc.edu>
Date: 26 Feb 91 01:09:26 GMT
References: <1991Feb25.175423.18161@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <1991Feb25.190612.11384@csrd.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@csrd.uiuc.edu (news)
Organization: UIUC Center for Supercomputing Research and Development
Lines: 31

eijkhout@s41.csrd.uiuc.edu (Victor Eijkhout) was quite
unclear when he wrote:

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

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

>If you would write
> \openin0=Meyer.tex
> \ifeof0
>TeX would see `\openin0=Meyere.tex \ifeof0'

What I meant when writing `if you would write', was:
`if you would leave out the first line with \endlinechar'.
The starting spaces have no effect on TeX's processing\footnote
{Quiz: Why does the plain TeX \obeyspaces\obeylines combination
 not see starting spaces? Former participants of my
 Advanced TeX course excluded from competition}.

Here is then the solution:
{\endlinechar=-1
 \openin0=Meyer.tex\relax
 \ifeof0 ...

or replace the second line by 
 \openin0=Meyer.tex %
which I consider to be an abuse.

Victor.