Re: zap eof?

[Dorothy Day DAY@xxxxxxxx]

Annie writes:

In the "Re: Xywrite books" thread, RAY BUCKO, S.J.
 wrote:
 :  When I edit .html files with xywrite
 :  in ascii and upload them to the vax I get
 :  a little annoying box displaced at the end
 :  of the file. How can I get rid of that?

>The vax is surely telling you that it doesn't like the ascii 26 (hex 1A) ^Z
>control character at the end of your file. xyWrite doesn't display the eof
>symbol and apparently offers no option to erase it.
> >You can, however, download a binary utility that lops off eofs, and "do" the
>utility from the xyWrite command line, and can integrate the utility by
>writing it into an xpl macro. Any time xyWrite saves a file with no eof, it
>adds one. It is the character that makes an apparently blank file register in
>a directory listing as being one character in length.
> >Many apps add the eof symbol and the control character can cause problems in
>various environments, so binary utilities that zap the eof are common; they
>often include STRIP in the name. Tony Woozley mentioned NOCZ.COM on the Nota
>Bene board and speculated that it may be in the NB archives. *If* this refers
>to the SimTel site (Dorothy? Daniel?), the address is:
> > ftp://oak.oakland.edu/SimTel/msdos/notabene/
> >             --annie

Yes, that's the address for the notabene archives. However, the
program can also be found in simtel sites in the msdos/textutil
directory as:

nocz12.zip B 8930 891013 Strip Ctrl Z's from files, 3
versions, ASM src

It's an invaluable tool for the purpose. Whenever you open a file
that turns out to be shorter than its directory size shows it to
be, *immediately abandon it!* and run nocz on it to strip out
any Ctrl-Z's somewhere within the file. If instead you save it
in Xy or NB, everything after the first Ctrl-Z encountered will
be lost for good.

NOCZ runs much faster (nearly instantaneous) if you give it an
output file instead of just letting it save back to the same
file, e.g.

   nocz foo.txt > foo1.txt

Shell out to DOS or run it from the Xy/NB command line using do/
(or dos/).

BTW, what's the Xy ftp archive site address? I *know* I have it
somewhere...

Dorothy Day, Indiana University SLIS
Bitnet: DAY@IUBACS
Internet: day@xxxxxxxx