Re: io:lines() and \0

[Andrew Starks <andrew.starks@...>]

On Friday, February 21, 2014, Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

Now I think two things:

lines should be removed. "write it if you need it."

That my assumptions have been rocked to their core, now that I'm contemplating the notion of Dirk having read "How To Win Friends and Influence People"