Re: Text file format

Howard Brazee <howard@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I have used Text Wrangler to change the character coding and line ends
of some documents that I have imported from Windows systems but which
did not display correctly in Text Edit.

I saw lot of options, and decided to look at a OS X generated text
file to model my documents.

But the amount of options Text Wrangler has leads me to ask advice
about different formats for different uses. For instance, a document
that I need to copy directly back and forth between OS X and Windows
might be different from one I use elsewhere.

Any recommendations about when a particular character coding and/or
LF/FF settings are appropriate?

Line endings are easy:

LF: Unix, including Mac OS X
CR+LF: DOS, Windows
CR: Old Mac OS

Where LF is a line feed and CR is a carriage return (DOS uses two
characters).

Since the pattern is so simple, there are no real dramas converting
between one and the other. Just use that which is most convenient.
I always use LF since all the unix tools will have no dramas and it
is simple to add or change to a CR for apps that don't get it.

Encodings I don't know much about. As I understand it, if you want
to be universal (lots of characters, lots of support), go with a
UTF format like UTF-8 or UTF-16. If you specifically want to support
a certain language, go for the encoding for that language (eg.
ISO-2022-JP (JIS) for Japanese). If you want a good, widely
compatible encoding that covers all of the characters used in
Western Europe but doesn't have the complexity of UTF, use
ISO 8859-1 (Latin 1). There are adaptions of this encoding (-2, -3,
-4 etc.) that add more exotic characters.

Finally, use Mac OS Roman or Windows-1250 only if you want to be
compatible with those OS's.

HTH

--
*--------------------------------------------------------*
| ^Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool^ |
| Heath Raftery, HRSoftWorks _\|/_ |
*______________________________________m_('.')_m_________*
.

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