Mail formatting

[Sean Conner]

It was thus said that the Great der Mouse once stated:
> > One of the recurring issues of ASCII is:
> > "What is the ASCII code for newline?"
> 
> 0x0a, one of whose names is NL.  This is well-defined.
> 
> > Is a new line CR (carriage return)?  LF (linefeed)?   CR LF?   LF CR?
> 
> This is not a question about ASCII; it is a question about how some
> unspecified system represents linebreaks - about how that system uses
> ASCII, perhaps.
> 
> Worse, on many systems the answer differs depending what point you
> measure at.  On most Unix variants, for example, it's 0x0a when
> measured in files or in C strings, but 0x0d 0x0a when measured on
> hardware serial lines.
> 
> > Is '\n' 0Dh?  0Ah?  0Dh 0Ah?  0Ah 0Dh?
> 
> It's only one character; that much is well-specified (well, assuming
> your '\n' was supposed to be C).  What the numerical value of that
> character is is not well-defined without reference to a particular
> system (though 0x0a is by far the commonest, probably because it's
> ASCII NL).

  If you run the following bit of C code under MS-DOS (or Windows):

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(int argc,char *argv[])
{
  FILE *fp;
  int   c;

  if (argv == 1)
    fp = stdin;
  else
    fp = fopen(argv[1],"r");

  if (fp == NULL)
  {
    perror(argv[1]);
    return(EXIT_FAILURE);
  }

  while((c = getc(fp)) != EOF)
  {
    if (c == '\n')
      printf("new line\n");
    else if (c == 0x0D)
      printf("carriage return\n");
  }
  return(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

All you will see is repetition of "new line"----you won't see any "carriage
return" at all.  That's because the Standard C Library is sucking up the
carriage returns.  Upon printing a '\n', the Standard C Library is silently
adding carriage returns.  Change the "r" in the fopen() call to "rb" and
then you'll start seeing carriage returns.
  
  -spc (Gah!  Why do I remember this horrible MS-DOS crap?)