Holes in dfl files

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Before we got distracted by the malfeasances of
Microsoft, I had been going to comment on the danger of
having "holes" (for want of a better term) in one's
configuration files. It has been mentioned before, but
people come and go here and not everyone reads
everything, and it bears repeating. It is not a Good
Thing--in fact it is a very Bad Thing--to have blank
lines in one's configuration files, esp. in
settings.dfl. Any line that does not include a command
or default should have the comment code, which is
semicolon, asterisk, semicolon (;*;) in startup.int and
program files, and just semicolon (;) in .dfl, .prn,
and .kbd files. (Obviously, the width tables of a
printer file will have the space char, and it may come
at the beginning of a line, but that's a special case).
Blank lines apparently eat up memory, and can cause
very flaky behavior. And once there is one, more can
creep in. So it is a good idea to periodically call
settings.dfl and search for CR space and CRCR (i.e.,
CarriageReturn/LineFeed followed by a space or by
itself; the out-of-the-box keyboard assignment for
searching is Ctrl-Enter; I cannot find a name for the
function itself).

--
Patricia M. Godfrey
PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx