Re: End_Of_File but not really

["Steve" <nospam_steved94@comcast.net>]

"Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> wrote in message 
news:oJednfF3KqVVLOXYnZ2dnUVZ_q-dnZ2d@megapath.net...
[snip]
>
> As I noted before, there is absoletely no chance that this behavior (or 
> any
> behavior of Text_IO) would be changed, because there's no possible way for
> such a change to the compatible. If the program "knows" about the "lost"
> blank line, it might fail badly if the definition was to be changed. So 
> it's
> 23 years too late to fix Text_IO.
>

Actually... couldn't the "Form" option that is passed to Open include an 
option that changes the end of file behavior?  That wouldn't break old code, 
but would make new code easier.

Steve
(The Duck)


> The moral is simply to never use Text_IO.End_of_File, but rather handle
> End_Error instead. If you try to use End_of_File, you have the potential 
> of
> "losing" the last line of the file, you still can have End_Error raised if
> you call Get or Get_Line when there is no <LF> character at the end of the
> file, your program will run slower, and your program won't be able to read
> interactively from the keyboard. It's not worth it, no matter what you 
> think
> about using exceptions for non-errors.
>
>                              Randy.
>
>