[TUHS] Re: non-Posix input files

Chet - as I said, we tried so hard to keep that kind of crap out. Dennis was right. FWIW: with UNIX (POSIX), input will end if an EOF and the ANSI C untilies will obey it or a newline, so you can write the code to work fine either way. But that's a choice of implementation/what subroutines - how you think about the data. I'll accept that that is what the words say in the >>awk<< specification document, but as one of the original authors of the first UNIX standard and the later POSIX standard I can say we tried hard to mak sure we got it right and follow the idea: A regular file has no structure and never to allow the standard to impose it. I think the core standard still says that, and the basic idea is unchanged. The actual structure of the input file is an application idea, not a UNIX/POSIX defined idea. The issue here is the term POSIX. Do you mean it to be the kernel (.1) and if a >>specific<< application with .2 (the C compiler itself, awk, ed) which might put structure onto the file and that's fine. The >>OS<< does not set the structure — it is done by something else. I understand having the application do it; I wish it did not. Many applications (even text editors) can (and have) been written without needing one specific structure, which is my point. I also accept that the folks who took over the standard in the name of "progress" changed (relaxed) much of what we worked so hard to avoid, knowing there were dragons - particularly WRT to textual information. We really did not want to repeat the errors of the 1960s. *i.e.*, as George Santayana originally wrote, *“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” * ᐧ On Thu, Mar 27, 2025 at 3:05 PM Chet Ramey &lt;chet.ramey(a)case.edu&gt; wrote: