The following header lines retained to effect attribution:
|Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 21:29:07 +0100
|From: Hans Aberg <[log in to unmask]>
|Subject: Re: Side remarks about TeX input sequence
|To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L <[log in to unmask]>
|Reply-to: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <[log in to unmask]>

        [BIG SNIP]

|>From what I understand from VMS, one can set a file attributes to provide
|the desired translations. Thus, even if one writes a version where files
|are opened as binary, with say \n, \r, \r\n interpreted as newlines, one
|can set an attribute to provide the proper translation; or this was the
|impression I got from Phillip Helbig's description.

        There are sysem utility programs to do such conversions and
        there are system services for a program to determine what the
        file attributes are and select an appropriate conversion to
        be done within the program.  VMS supports all three of the
        stream line terminators.

        I wrote such a program about 6 years ago.  Since VMS is not
        one of my major operating systems, I do not remember the
        small details.

|-- Under UNIX, MacOS, or MSOS, binary files are not translated at all, so
|if one does not make the right newline convention or translate the files
|first by some other means, it will not work.

        It would if it were done along the lines I described previously
        in this thread.  It works for Adobe PostScript and in Sun Java;
        that is enough examples to convince me that it can be done.  I
        do remember enough of the VMS work to realize that it would only
        be a page or so of code in VMS.  In UNIX, it would be a few lines.
        I do not know enough about MacOS to offer a guess.

        A brief summary of the method: read the files adding line
        terminators to record format files, if the operating system
        supports such, and recognize all three line terminator
        sequences and standardize them to one format.

|  Hans Aberg

Randolph J. Herber, [log in to unmask], +1 630 840 2966, CD/CDFTF PK-149F,
Mail Stop 318, Fermilab, Kirk & Pine Rds., PO Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510-0500,
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