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From: KARNEY%PPC.MFENET@NMFECC.ARPA.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.computers.vax
Subject: Reading files with long lines in Pascal
Message-ID: <870218132731.0ga@nmfecc.arpa>
Date: Wed, 18-Feb-87 16:27:31 EST
Article-I.D.: nmfecc.870218132731.0ga
Posted: Wed Feb 18 16:27:31 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Feb-87 02:02:27 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 28
Approved: info-vax@sri-kl.arpa

I'm trying to read a text file in Pascal.  The text file may not have 
a maximum record length defined.  Since the default record length is 133,
and since I want to read files with longer lines I use something like
    program foo(input,output);
    var f:text;
    begin
      open(f,'tst.txt',history:=readonly,record_length:=501);
    end.
so allowing me to handle line with up to 501 characters.  This works fine
most of the time.  E.g.,
    $ create tst.txt
    foobar
    ^Z
    $ r foo
is OK.  But if the same file is created by EDT, I get
    %PAS-F-RECLENINC, RECORD_LENGTH specified is inconsistent with this file
even though DIRECTORY/FULL shows no differences in record structure.

What's going on?  How do I reliably read text files with long lines?  What
I need is some way of specifying a record_length only for those files with
no maximum record length defined.  I suppose I could do:
      open(f,'tst.txt',history:=readonly,record_length:=501,error:=continue);
      if status(f)>0 then
        open(f,'tst.txt',history:=readonly,error:=continue);
But is there a more elegant solution?

                    Charles Karney
                    Karney%PPC.MFENET@NMFECC.ARPA