Re: Problems with data import from q-set.de

[Ben Pfaff]

On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 08:49:30PM +0200, John Darrington wrote:
> Indeed, these files are wierd.  They seem to use a single CR as a line
> separator.  I've never seen a file like that before - effectively both
> files contain only one line.

I think that this (CR as new-line) is the convention that old versions
of Mac OS used.

I am very confused about how SPSS handles new-lines.  It clearly handles
files that use CR+LF or LF only as newline.  I also know from an earlier
bug report (see commit adb78c1da5de "Do not treat isolated CR in input
data as new-line.") that SPSS does not treat a CR by itself as a
new-line.  But I do not know how it could handle both CR by itself as
part of a line and as a new-line.

We could invent various heuristics to try to figure out the new-line in
use.  For example, we could decide that the first CR, LF, or CR+LF in a
file is the canonical new-line for that file.  (I think that would
handle the case reported in commit adb78c1da5de, because I think that
only had a few CRs in the middle of the file.)  But I'm really not sure
what to do, honestly.