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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-tgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn <gwyn>)
Newsgroups: net.bugs
Subject: Re: "proper UNIX text file" ???
Message-ID: <2345@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 23-Oct-85 09:51:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.2345
Posted: Wed Oct 23 09:51:42 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 24-Oct-85 08:31:42 EDT
References: <23@pixel.UUCP> <2235@brl-tgr.ARPA> <901@burl.UUCP>
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
Lines: 25

> In article <2235@brl-tgr.ARPA> gwyn@brl-tgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn <gwyn>) writes:
> >Many UNIX text-file utilities will discard a (necessarily final)
> >text line that does not end in a newline.  Quite simply, such a
> >file is not a proper UNIX text file.
> 
> I think that the \User Guide to the UNIX System/ rebutts this as well as
> I could:
> 
> "In the UNIX system, files have no internal structure; they are simply
> a finite sequence of arbitrary characters."
> 
> A Unix file is a series of bytes, nothing more is needed to make it a
> 'proper' UNIX text file.

Tell that to "ed".  This is the second response I have gotten
this morning that shows lack of care in reading.  The magic
word "text" in front of "file" is what is called an adjective.
It qualifies (i.e., modifies) the general meaning of the noun
to produce a more specific meaning.  There are UNIX files and
there is a subset of these called UNIX text files.  Many UNIX
utilities are designed to work only with text files, which DO
have internal structure (line-oriented).  These and only these
are the files under discussion.

P.S.  I didn't realize Thomas & Yates was considered authoritative.