Methodology

In order to test how C handles reading text files, I followed these steps:

• Create 10 delimited text files all containing the same data, but with different line terminators. Some of these files are properly formatted for the DOS, Unix, or Macintosh operating systems, and some are malformed.

• Write a C program to read these text files from disk and output what was actually read.

• Analyze the program output.

The program read each file six times using two different file open modes and three different read functions. In addition, the program was compiled and run in the following environments:

• Microsoft Visual C++ version 6.0 on a DOS/Windows PC.

• Borland C++ version 4.52 on a DOS/Windows PC.

• GNU 'gcc' version 2.7.2.1 on a Linux computer.

(I do not have access to a Macintosh or a Macintosh C compiler, so the program was not tested on a Mac.)

Do the arithmetic, and you'll see that this produced 180 output files! (And if I had a Mac compiler, there would be 240.) They're all here.