The write mode

The settings that are relevant for writing out a file are in two categories. The first governs the conventions used to write out the file, and the second governs the way a previous file of the same name is dealt with in terms of backups. Finally there is a view-only setting which doesn't allow the writing of a file at all. The various settings are explained below.

The current write mode is indicated by a letter A,U,R or P in the second position of the status characters in the status bar:

A - MS-DOS and Atari mode.

This mode can be selected with Alt-A. In this mode each line of output is terminated by both a carriage return and a linefeed. This is the most widely used convention and also the convention officially used by MS-DOS/Windows and Atari.

U - Unix mode.

This mode can be selected with Alt-U. In this mode each line is terminated by only a linefeed. This shortens the length of the file by one character per line which can be useful. All Unix systems use this convention and most C programs love it. If you have a system that is used to the A-mode many programs might make a mess of your file though.

R - Raw mode.

This mode can be selected with Alt-R. In this case the lines are written without any linefeed or carriage return termination characters at all. Hence the lines will be run together and unrecognizable thereafter as separate lines. When reading in a file in this mode, the linefeeds and carriage returns are not interpreted but simply treated as other characters. Hence this mode can be used for reading in a binary file for limited editing and the file can be saved without the introduction of any extraneous characters (see also the chapter on hex code p. ). Since writing in this mode could cause loss of information which may be time-consuming to recover, whenever an attempt is made to write in this mode, stedi asks for confirmation before proceeding.

P - Printer mode.

This mode can be selected with Alt-P. Not only is each line terminated by both a carriage return and a linefeed, but the tabs are also expanded into the appropriate number of blank spaces. This is useful for sending a file with special tab settings to a printer on a different system. Its most frequent use is however to avoid problems with compilers that don't like tabs. Note however that expanding the tabs can make a file substantially longer.

The writing mode is one of the variables that is kept in the default file. It is also one of the variables that can be set for each buffer independently.