If you select this it writes an oldstyle Mac ascii file that has the problem. When you want to export a spreadsheet, the first option you still will read "Macintosh Ascii File". On the Mac platform the most likely source of this problem is data exported from Microsofts Excel program. Fortnately the use of this style of ascii files is going away but there are still cases where these files will be generated (usually be some applications running on the Mac platform).įor example in Fledermaus if you use Import > Import Points and select an ascii file that ends with only the file you will get and error dialog saying that no data was read. Macintosh (old) - Lines end with only a characterįledermaus will have problems reading the old style Macintosh ascii files that end only in a. Macintosh (Mac OSX) - Lines end with only a character Windows - Lines end with both a followed by a character Here is how the different platforms end lines in ASCII files.
#Windows unix linux mac os mac os x#
Mac OS X is based on a Unix core thus Mac OS X ascii files have the same default as Linux nodays. Things are further complicated because the Macintosh platform made a substantial change when Mac OS X was released. They include the carridge return character "referred to as " and the linefeed character "referred to as". There are two different characters that are not visible that are used to indicate the end of a line. How the end of the lines are stored is different depending on if you are using Windows, Macintosh, or Unix. Take for example the following 3 line file: How ASCII text files are represented are different on different operating systems.
The problem is how we handle ASCII text data files that end in a carrige return character. The differences between platforms end of line characters can cause a problem when importing point files produced on older Macintosh computers.