readln() returns new line charater

[Stewart Gordon]

On 28/12/2013 16:49, Jeroen Bollen wrote:
> Why is when you do readln() the newline character (\n) gets read too?
> Wouldn't it make more sense for that character to be stripped off?

The newline character needs to be read - how else will it know when it's 
got to the end of the line? :)

Of course, that doesn't mean that it needs to be included in the string 
returned by readln.  Indeed, this is an inconsistency - writeln adds a 
newline so, in order to match, readln ought to strip the newline away.

But sometimes you might want the newline.  Maybe you're building up a 
string in memory from several lines, or you want to know whether the 
file ends with a newline or not.  Indeed, there are three possibilities:

- you don't care about the newlines themselves, only the strings they 
delimit
- you care about the presence or absence of a final newline
- you want to preserve the distinction between different styles of 
newline (CR, LF, CRLF, whatever else).

Maybe readln should have an optional parameter so that you have the choice.

Stewart.