Hello Maurice,

On Fri, Dec 06 2024 20:36:29 -0600, you wrote ..

> It's more a question of what works than what is right or wrong.  
> Setting the width so that a quote prefix can be added will assure us 
> that older DOS-think abandonware doesn't run over it's 79 character 
> limit for displayed line lengths makes this quoting method superior, 
> with or without spaces an the end.  Leaving them in will make this a 
> lossless method of quoting.

Definitely! However, after it leaves our systems who knows what the abandonware will do with it. By the time it's quoted for the third time it's already either wrapped or text is straight up cut off the ends of the lines if they go too long.

What were they thinking?

Was it ever a standard or even 'normal' to cut text off the ends of lines when quoted? Or was that just a terrible and/or lazy implementation of quoting in whatever software was doing it?

It looks like the initial release of the "fold" command was some time in 1977, although I'm not sure when it became cross-platform.

Regards,
Nick

... He who laughs last, thinks slowest.