Hello Wilfred!

21 Feb 15 16:47, you wrote to me:

 WvV> So what you are saying is that BOMs should always be filtered out from
 WvV> input files before further processing. And there's no need to make this
 WvV> an option. ;)

 From what I have seen and read, the BOM is used as a marker for Notepad to
 switch to UTF-8 when the file is openend. When a file is saved as a UTF-8
 file the BOM is put into the first 2 positions of the file.

 I will have to guess how administrators prepare their submissions to make
 a guess where the BOM can be introduced. If nobody uses Notepad for
 editing parts of their submissions the problem is probably moot.

 So how do people maintain their segments and what files are there.

 Lets start with the three text files. When edited, the may have a BOM at
 their start and that BOM will end up in the middle of a comment section.
 It shows as 3chars of rubbish.

 Some maintain their section is the "data" section of the control file.
 In that case the *.ctl will start with a BOM, makenl may throw an error
 messages, and continue as usual.

 Some may include subsegments in the files section of the CTL.
 The included files will often be generated with makenl by a lower oder admin.
 One can expect the file to be save and without a BOM.
 Some submit manually maintained segments, those files are a hazard anyway
 and should be checked and cleaned anyway. There could be a BOM at their start.

 A last where a segment can be maintained in an editor is the segment file
 in the master directory. There a BOM will be placed at the start of the
 file, i.e. at the start of the headerline. As far as I know the old
 headerline is ignored when makenl processes the modified segment in the
 master directory.

 In short the only usefull place for the BOM would be the start of the file.
 That line is generated by makenl without a BOM. Remnants of BOM's is
 other files could show up in comment sections, as 3char rubbish, with no
 function. So there is no place for the BOM in de nodelist and leaving it
 in as an option is useless.

 The nodelist is a byte ordered file, so there is no endian dependency.
 Whoever want to use it in a word ordered way, will have to redesign
 makenl anyway.

Kees

--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5