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Received: by minnie.vk1xwt.ampr.org with NNTP id AA6079 ; Mon, 04 Jan 93 19:02:10 EST Xref: sserve comp.unix.bsd:9658 comp.std.internat:1607 Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,comp.std.internat Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!uunet!psinntp!ficc!peter From: peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva) Subject: Re: Dumb Americans (was INTERNATIONALIZATION: JAPAN, FAR EAST) Message-ID: <id.EAHW.92A@ferranti.com> Followup-To: comp.std.internat Keywords: Han Kanji Katakana Hirugana ISO10646 Unicode Codepages Organization: Xenix Support, FICC References: <1992Dec28.062554.24144@fcom.cc.utah.edu> <2615@titccy.cc.titech.ac.jp> <1993Jan5.090747.29232@fcom.cc.utah.edu> Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 18:46:32 GMT Lines: 29 In article <1993Jan5.090747.29232@fcom.cc.utah.edu> terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C) writes: > >>or > >>"pollutes" the files (all files except those stored in US-ASCII have file > >>sizes which no longer reflect true character counts on the file). > Destruction of this information is basically unacceptable for Western users Gee, since this information is already non-existant for anything but computer source (computer programs and other data intended to be read by a compiler or other plain text parser), and even there information is hidden in white space (is that a tab or 8 spaces?), I find it hard to understand this statement. > Consider for a moment, if you will, changing the first character of a > field in a 1M file. Not only does this cause the record size ot become > variant on the data within it (thus rendering a computed lseek() useless, > since the records are no longer fixed size), but it requires that the entire > file contents be shifted to accomodate what used to be ther rewrite of a > single block. Files containing fixed sized fields will be unable to contain runic data within the fields, or the feilds will have to be padded, just as they are now. The occasions you can do this sort of meddling in a plaintext file are pretty limited already. -- Peter da Silva `-_-' Ferranti International Controls Corporation 'U` Sugar Land, TX 77487-5012 USA +1 713 274 5180 "Zure otsoa besarkatu al duzu gaur?"