Gavin writes:

>So now we have the ability to use this [line termination flag] information
>(optionally) when
>reading the file.  Since we haven't tried to translate the file contents
>in any way, we haven't had an opportunity to corrupt the file as would
>be the case if the server tried to "intelligently" translate ASCII files
>to LF format when stored on the 3000, and back to the appropriate format
>when serving the file up to a non-LF type client.  The worst thing that
>will happen is that if we want to serve a file to a client that uses a
>different line terminator than the client that created the file, we
>might inappropriately perform a conversion on the file when serving it.
>In this case you would have to take some action to force the transfer
>to disable the translation, but at least the data would then be available
>in an uncorrupted state.

While the flag is unquestionably useful for MPE programs trying to read a
file, it's of much less value for server programs. A server program that
tries to do EOL translation for its clients risks corrupting data for
non-text files. And unlike the POSIX library, which at least gets the
fopen() parameters, the server has no way of knowing whether a client
intends to treat the file as text or binary.

Again, though, the flag would be very useful for MPE programs that
process or create files intended to be accessed via file server programs,
especially if the file system or POSIX library takes care of all the
translation.

>Comments?

Comments, unless embedded within text and enclosed within
language-dependent comment delimiters, should be terminated with whatever
line termination scheme the file uses.

-- Bruce


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