[Info-vax] Re; Spiralog, RMS Journaling (was Re: FREESPADRIFT)

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2016-06-28 06:09, johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk wrote:
> On Monday, 27 June 2016 18:41:58 UTC+1, Bob Koehler  wrote:
>> In article <00B0B3EA.9F7943FA at SendSpamHere.ORG>,   VAXman-  @SendSpamHere.ORG writes:
>>>
>>> OK... So we should all toss fixed, VFC, VAR, STM and STMCF formats and use
>>> STMLF exclusively.
>>>
>>> Again, the filesize (in bytes) CAN be had but they'll not mean what you want
>>> them to mean to your protocol transfer.  Again, I don't see that as any VMS
>>> problem;  I see it as a protocol limitation imposed by all of the *ixers out
>>> there that have, parochially, defined these protocols RFCs.
>>
>>    Hm.   Windows stores text lines with CRLF separators, so that's 2
>>    bytes meta-data per line of text.  VAR stores text with leaing
>>    lengths in 16 bit words, so that's 2 bytes meta-data per line of
>>    text.
>>
>>    Would seem to me that VAR isn't even a problem.  When you do the
>>    conversion to the protocol's CRLF separators, you get the same total
>>    bytes.
>
> Are you sure "Windows stores text lines with CRLF separators"?
>
> Or do you mean "(some) Windows applications can correctly process text lines with CRLF separators"?
>
> Windows has no built in record management layer. To some that's a good thing.

Fair point. Yes, Windows itself do not do this implicitly anywhere. It's 
all in the libraries.
That said, there is a defined standard for Windows on how text files 
should be represented. If you choose to not follow that, that's your 
applications problem.

Hmm, thinking about it, I wonder if not some old legacy DOS calls to the 
BIOS will actually do the CR+LF processing implicitly, so there are 
places where it takes place outside your code as well.

> It also means that the behaviour of two allegedly similar Windows apps (e.g. two text editors) when fed the exact same file may be different depending on what's in the data on the disk.

That is equally true of any application, on any operating system.
And I fail to see the relevance. It's just like how many applications 
react on Unix systems when they get fed files that have CR+LF line 
endings. Some do things one way, others different.
Or under VMS, where some programs freak out when you have explicitly 
CR+LF in a sequential file, and the record attributes also have implicit 
CR+LF. Some programs will put in an extra empty line. Some programs will 
totally freak out because the explicit control characters on the line...

	Johnny