shell editor

[Linux for blind general discussion]

Thanks, those binary zeros in that context could cause a real mess.
On Tue, 
26 Sep 2017, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:

> Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2017 00:10:43
> From: Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list at redhat.com>
> To: Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list at redhat.com>
> Subject: Re: shell editor
> 
> The truncate command will likely have an undesired side-effect: if the
> file is smaller than the target size, it will be generally be padded with
> binary zeroes to force it to be the specified size.
>
> If pure truncation is desired, might I suggest the dd command instead:
>  dd if=input-file of=output-file bs=maxlength count=1
> If the input-file is shorter than maxlength, output-file will be the
> same as input-file (not padded to maxlength).
> (warning: maxlength has a limit, but that limit is usually at least 100 Meg.)
>
> On Mon, Sep 25, 2017 at 18:07:24PM -0400, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
>> This isn't what was requested, but I'm pretty certain it will be useful
>> nonetheless.  The truncate command can create a file and make it a
>> specific number of characters in size.  Truncation happens from the end of
>> the file if too large.  So truncate 10000 file.txt would make a file 10000
>> characters in length.  Editing that file in overwrite mode not insert mode
>> change lines don't insert lines would use up the space for the character
>> limit on the file.  Saving an edit; then truncating the file again but to
>> a different file name than the original then comm -2 file1 file2 would
>> show lines only in file2 not in file1.
>
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