Alex Shinn scripsit: > This is where you have a contradiction - the field is "fixed width" > but the full width is not available, which means you have an invalid > format.
Yes, in one sense. However, when transferring textual data between heterogeneous systems it is very common for trailing spaces to be discarded willy-nilly, and the approach described recovers from that nicely. Be liberal in what you accept. > If the goal is to take a fixed field you should be taking that. If > the format allows either then the format itself is ambiguous, which > means you have a _much_ bigger problem than whatever language > idioms you use. Purism has its place, but is not always the appropriate response to Real World issues. In this case, kicking back such records as "invalid/ambiguous format" simply would not have served the organization's goals. -- In my last lifetime, John Cowan I believed in reincarnation; http://www.ccil.org/~cowan in this lifetime, co...@ccil.org I don't. --Thiagi _______________________________________________ Chicken-hackers mailing list Chicken-hackers@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/chicken-hackers
