Re: Reading LAST line from text file without iterating through the
file?
On 26-02-2011 10:30, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sat, 26 Feb 2011, Peter Duniho wrote:
On 2/26/11 9:27 PM, Arved Sandstrom wrote:
The usefulness of the term "text file" for me is that it describes a
file that can be opened, viewed and used by every application, tool
and utility, on every OS and platform, that purports to be a "text
editor".
Then I think you need to define "text file" more narrowly than what is
actually out there. In this thread alone, there have been mentioned a
number of true text file formats that are simply not readable in your
average or even above-average text editor found on mainstream OSs.
Either (a) according to Arved's definition, which is highly appealing to
me, they are not true text file formats, or (b) they *are* readable with
the standard text editors *on the OSs on which they are found*, in which
case, perhaps they are.
If Java, C, Fortran etc. reads them as text files, then it seems weird
not to consider them text files.
Nonetheless, in general discourse on a newsgroups like this, there is a
presumption that we're standing in the lands of the tribe of Ken
Thompson, which has come to occupy the greater part of the world, and
than plain text means ASCII or one of its successors, with lines
terminated by CR and/or LF, and no funny business. This is not a
universal truth, but it is a truth where we are right now.
I really don't see any reason to redefine the concept of
lines due to many people having very limited experience
with other OS'es than Windows or Unix.
Java has not been standardized and made as well defined as it has
just to have "if it happens to work on *nix and Windows then it is
portable".
Arne