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Absolutely, that's the way it should be. And usually is. But
occasionally the number of spaces becomes important. (I have had one
recent instance - it involved switching to another window by title
string, and Windows is very picky - if the window title has two spaces
and the command has one, you are out of luck.) And it's rare enough
(under normal circumstances) that the reader isn't expecting it, and
won't get used to any convention we use. So I like the suggestion
someone made, of explicitly spelling out the number of spaces required
at each point.
---
mike -dot- huber -at- software -dot- rockwell -dot- com
Home: nax -at- execpc -dot- com
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Richard Mateosian [SMTP:srm -at- CYBERPASS -dot- NET]
>Sent: Monday, April 06, 1998 5:39 PM
>To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
>Subject: Re: Ways to indicate spaces in command lines?
>
>>Apparently there has been some confusion over where to place
>>spaces when they are typing in these commands. Does anyone have any
>>ideas on how I can show them where the spaces (and how many) appear in
>>each line? Using an underscore won't work, because that is actually
>>used for directory names, etc.
>
>Gone are the days when we had to start our statements exactly at column
>seven,
>because columns 1-5 were for the line number and column 6 was the
>continuation
>column. Nowadays, input software can and should allow users broad latitude.
>
>If users are doing something that makes perfect sense to them, the software
>ought to make every effort to understand it. It can then translate the input
>into whatever rigid internal format the system requires. ...RM
>