Re: End of file char

[Robert Holmgren]

** Reply to note from Harry Binswanger 05/21/96
>> [The] simplest trick is the oldest one of all (for DOS or
>> OS/2-VDM only...). Invent a non-existent filename, e.g. BOGUS,
>> then issue this command (in XyWrite):
>>
>>  dos/nv/x/z /c copy my.txt/a+bogus my.txt/b

> That's what I've been doing. Except what is the /x and the /z?
> Do they keep the same filename? DOS doesn't recognize them.

Take another look at the command above. If that's what you've been doing, then this
whole EOF discussion thread would be moot, because you would never have experienced any
Ascii-26 or post-Ascii-26 'garbage' problems ("Does anyone know .. a way to avoid the
garbage past Xy's EOF marker..."). /X and /Z are XyWrite commands, not DOS commands.
They don't "keep the same filename"; concatenation itself copies all files to the name of
the first file in the concatenation -- see the COPY command in the DOS manual. The
purpose of COPY's /A switch, when applied to source f ile(s), is to ignore all remaining
file content beginning with the first occurrence of 1Ah, until true EOF per the system
file table. In other words, the command above truncates files without change of name.
So in practice, you SAve file MY.TXT in final form, then run the command above in XyWrite
(or in DOS, same difference), and finally, without further changing MY.TXT, you
manipulate it outside XyWrite -- even using Notepad if you really must.

XyWrite commands /X and /Z freeze the screen and omit user prompts while XyWrite shells
out to DOS.

If you are using Xy3+, then you are probably seeing data from an old overwritten file
that formerly occupied the end of this sector (EMM386.SYS, by the looks of it). That
used to happen to me, but I've never seen it in Xy4.  OTOH, since I started using HPFS
about the time I switched to Xy4, maybe this was a FAT phenomenon exclusively. What does
Tech Support say? Yoohoo!

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Robert Holmgren
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