Re: Handling \Newline \Linefeed

[straz@cambridge.apple.com (Steve Strassmann)]

 >To: info-mcl@ministry.cambridge.apple.com
 >From: tar@ISI.EDU (Thomas A. Russ)
 >Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp.mcl
 >Subject: Re: Handling \Newline \Linefeed
 >Date: 11 Aug 93 08:27:56
 >Organization: USC-ISI
 >Distribution: world
 >Reply-To: tar@isi.edu
 >Nntp-Posting-Host: grover.isi.edu
 >
 >It would seem much cleaner to just have the software that you are
 >using to transfer the files from one platform to the next handle the
 >end-of-line translation for you.  I imagine that most of the Mac-DOS
 >connection methods allow this, since it is a problem for all text
 >files, not just MCL programs.

This is tough when you have a unix volume mounted on your Mac (or vice
versa), and you're going through some file server like NFS or Appleshare
rather than a protocol like ftp.

Since primitive file systems like unix/dos have no reliable way to 
determine file types, this strategy usually results in inappropriate 
conversion for the wrong files (binaries) and no conversion for the 
right ones (e.g. README with no .txt suffix)