Hi Lawrence,

 LL>    EG:   if the first name written to the file is Lawrence Lucier and the
 LL> second John Henry, then the first record will hold the name "Lawrence
 LL> Lucier", but the second record will be "John Henry ier".

 LL> struct copy_name
 LL> {
 LL>     char delim[2];
 LL>     :
 LL> };

 LL>         strcpy(mtag2.delim, "ex");
 LL>         strcpy(mtag2.name, user.name);

I think the problem may be that the file you read does not contain
null-terminated strings. If the source has a fixed length, try to memcpy()
it and null-terminate it.

One more remark: delim[2] = 2 bytes, but strcpy(delim,"xx") will
copy 3 bytes: the two data bytes + NULL.

Bye, Johan.

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