DOS CR/LF in .MAP and .SYM files

[Jim T. Bowen (GAIA Consultants Inc.)]

Hi Daniel and others,

This is a common one (we were nailed by it too when we first began).  I
like your idea to modify the parser, but I cannot offer much help.  Here
are some alternate pointers for those interested:


* use a decent ftp programme that strips/adds CR to LF (most popular
programmes do this for you)
  * don't forget...if you zip the files before transferring, your ftp
prog. will *not* alter the newline characters

* if you are running SAMBA, remember that text files are *not* modified
by default
  * use a text editor like UltraEdit (or equivalent) and convert your
files once they are on your SAMBA drive or write your files from ArcView
with only LF (or vice-versa)

* run a script on your files each time they are transferred
  * in ksh, run SED (e.g., sed "s/$/`echo -e \\\r`/")  [convert Unix LF
to CR/LF]
  * in ksh, run SED (e.g., sed 's/.$//') [convert CR/LF to Unix
LF...this assumes all lines end in CR/LF]

I know this is not what you were looking for, but hopefully it may help
some.


Cheers,
Jim

Daniel Morissette wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Is there any way that the MapServer .MAP and .SYM parser could be
> modified so that it is not sensitive to the difference between DOS and
> Unix linefeeds.
> 
> It looks to me like every new MapServer user goes through the following
> error message when they try to get MapServer running the first time:
> 
>     msLoadSymbolFile(): Unknown identifier. ( ):(0)
> or
>     msLoadMap(): Unknown identifier. ( ):(5)
> 
> and most of the time, it's because MapServer is running on Unix and the
> .MAP or .SYM file contains DOS ^M chars... either because the original
> file came from Windows, or because a Windows tool was used to extract
> the archive and then copy the files to Unix.
> 
> I'm not a flex/bison expert, so I don't know if it's easy to fix...
> Anyone has ideas?
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>  Daniel Morissette                       danmo at videotron.ca
>               http://pages.infinit.net/danmo/
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>   Don't put for tomorrow what you can do today, because if
>       you enjoy it today you can do it again tomorrow.

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Jim T. Bowen, M.Sc., President 
                                   
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