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line break confusion

Quinn Dunkan quinn at seniti.ugcs.caltech.edu
Sat Feb 16 05:20:07 EST 2002 
On Fri, 15 Feb 2002 21:01:18 -0800, Michael Mell <mike at nthwave.net> wrote:
>Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote:
>
>> Windows: \r\n
>> Linux (UNIX): \n
>> Mac: \r
>>
>> Each OS's libs transform the sequence '\n' to whatever the right thing is for
>> them.
>
>Thanks for answering such an apparently ignorant question, but the answer is not
>so simple.
>
>I want to read and write files with line breaks which are not of the native
>platform type.
>
>Problem #1 is that on a Mac, the values of Mac and Unix are /swapped/ and
>therefore wrong. Writing a file using '\n' results in a /Mac/ line break (as
>reported by BBEdit, the venerable Mac editor). Writing a file using '\r'

That's what he said above.  The Mac stdio converts \n to the right thing (\r on
a Mac).


>reported by BBEdit, the venerable Mac editor). Writing a file using '\r'
results
>in a /Unix/ file. The Mac seems unable to write Windows \r\n no matter what
>order is used.

But that seems weird.

>Problem #2 is that when reading a Windows file on Linux or Mac, a /single/ line
>('\r\n') is interpreted as /two/ lines ('\n\n'). Files written out on Linux
then >have double the correct number of lines.

That's also weird.  Doesn't happen for me when I read CRLFs on unixes.


You should probably open your files in binary mode, to get stdio to leave the
line ending alone.  Then do your own EOL translation.
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