Re: io:lines() and \0

[Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@...>]

2014-02-22 0:51 GMT+02:00 Tim Hill <drtimhill@gmail.com>:

> So there are only two questions to answer:
> (1) Is the patch a significant improvement?
> (2) Is it going to be adopted?
>
> I think the answer to (1) is yes, and the answer to (2) is no.
> I’ve not seen any good, unbiased arguments as to why the
> answer to (1) would be no.

Most arguments start from a position on whether the present
behaviour is a bug. The OP, for example, has chosen to win
friends and influence people by sarcastically describing what
Roberto is willing to do as "to cover a data corruption bug with
a change of the manual".

In that sense they are all biased. If you do not agree that it is
a bug, then a little clarification in the manual is fully satisfactory,
and the answer to (1) is no because: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

But I will give you a good reason not based on that.

The change to the manual that Roberto intends to make
covers other non-portable characters too:  "... nor any other
control character other than newlines and horizontal tabs."

Vertical tab, for example. Escape sequences for highlighting
text on your terminal. Page feeds. Ctrl-Z. All of them may
give unportable results.

The proposed patch caters for the promotion of \0 is to be an
honorary non-control character.

You can't just liberate the beatiful butterfly called \0. There's
a whole Pandora's box full of creatures waiting to emerge.