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From: earleh@dartvax.UUCP (Earle R. Horton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Help wanted: 'TEXT' definition
Message-ID: <7326@dartvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Oct-87 22:27:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: dartvax.7326
Posted: Wed Oct  7 22:27:24 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 10-Oct-87 16:38:05 EDT
References: <3320029@hpcid.HP.COM> <4032@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>
Organization: disorganized
Lines: 54
Summary: might not have CR

In article <4032@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>, jww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West) writes:
> 
> A 'TEXT' file is a series of Macintosh extended ascii printable
> characters, with a return (13 decimal) following each line.  It
> may optionally include tab characters.
> 
                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Not necessarily so.  A 'TEXT' file could also have carriage returns at
the end of paragraphs only.  The first generally available application
to produce Macintosh 'TEXT' files (MacWrite) will produce either format,
according to what you want.  A 'TEXT' file with one paragraph may have
either one or zero carriage returns in it.

Here's my two cents worth:

A 'TEXT' file is a file which contains, in its data fork, no data
type which is larger than a byte.  Furthermore, the informational
content of a 'TEXT' file is found entirely within the data fork.
You can put anything you want in a 'TEXT' file, except for ints, longs,
floats, data structures or any extended data types (arrays of characters
are OK).

> The Apple extended ASCII set defines characters 128-255; see
> the Font Manager.  Other control characters (in the range 0-31)
> are not used.

The standard Macintosh printing character set contains four control characters.
These are: 
	Propeller
	Check-mark
	Diamond
	Apple-with-a-bite-out-of-it

In addition, the Font Manager chapter says the NUL character (0) must
have a printing representation.  However, there is no mention of
restricting the content of 'TEXT' files to printing characters in Inside
Macintosh or anywhere else that I know of.  Evidence of this is that the
Font Manager requires each font to have a "missing character" symbol.

A 'TEXT' file contains a byte stream in its data fork, and all bytes are
legal.  A *nice* 'TEXT' file, on the other hand, probably agrees with
Joel's description.  A nice 'TEXT' file doesn't contain stuff which
gives other applications than its creator a hard time when they try to
print it on the screen or printer.

I think it's a little late to insist that all 'TEXT' files be nice
'TEXT' files, but you can try if you want.  Me, I love to embed
formfeeds in the suckers for emphasis.

-- 
*********************************************************************
*Earle R. Horton, H.B. 8000, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755   *
*********************************************************************