Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!bbn!usc!hacgate!gryphon!richard
From: richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: ^D's, was (Re: "copy" to Amiga serial port)
Message-ID: <15526@gryphon.COM>
Date: 6 May 89 19:16:58 GMT
References: <8905041304.AA26209@decwrl.dec.com>
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 37

In article <8905041304.AA26209@decwrl.dec.com> batcheldern@hannah.dec.com (Ned Batchelder, PostScript Eng.) writes:
>In article <15402@gryphon.COM> richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) writes:
>>So when I told him about this ^D discussion we were having, he was
>>appalled there there was this piece of *BINARY* in an otherwise
>>perfectly ascii language.
>
>Your friend (or you, but no need to point fingers)

No, I really do have a friend. Really.

>missed the crucial
>point:  ^D is NOT a component of the PostScript language.  It is a
>widely accepted method for indicating end-of-file to serial-line PostScript
>printers.  This is exactly analogous to the use of ^S to do flow
>control. It isn't part of PostScript; it's part of the printer protocol.
>There are printers (and other PostScript interpreters) which don't know
>a ^D from any other control character.

I don't really care about thei ^D issue much at all. I can certainly see
both sides of the coin. Certainly at some point somebody will write
a PostScript spooler/device handler that can have files redirected
to it, and certainly sombody will someday fix broken UNIX spoolers
that barf when they see a ^D at the beginning.

My question really, based on my friends observation, was thet, why
isn't there an ascii end of file indicator ?

>A challenge:  find where in the Red Book ^D is discussed (except in
>appendix D, for those of you with old Red Books).

A biger challange: find my red book.


-- 
  
    ``*CONSENT*??? I gotta chase her off with a stick.'' - Ted Kaldis
richard@gryphon.COM  decwrl!gryphon!richard   gryphon!richard@elroy.jpl.NASA.GOV