.plan

[Paul Stodghill]

In article <00000 at starsend.UUPC> floyd at starsend.UUCP writes:
>The contents of such "active" text files probably contains control
>characters (probably ANSI) to manipulate the terminal.  I once had
>a file that when output to a VT100 terminal would draw a picture of
>a Christmas tree and toy train.  The lights on the tree would blink
>and the train would ride around the tree a couple of times before
>the end of the file.
>
>*******   *****************************************************
>*****  ********************** Floyd Miller ************
>***  ********************************************
>*  ************ floyd%starsend at PRC.Unisys.com
>  ***** starsend!floyd at burdvax.PRC.Unisys.com
>***
>*


Since no one else has mentioned it...

Escape sequences in .plan files may not be a good idea. For example, some
VT100 excape sequences will hang a VT52. I'm sure that they do unpleasant
things to other terminals as well. The non-Unix mail and news systems that
I have worked will (all VMS) made it a point to filter out non-printable
characters for this reason.

						-- Paul