From adam.obeng at columbia.edu  Mon Jun  6 12:11:21 2016
From: adam.obeng at columbia.edu (Adam Obeng)
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2016 11:11:21 +0100
Subject: [Rd] readlines() truncates text file with Codepage 437 encoding
Message-ID: <1465207881.3622652.629066105.5F14D407@webmail.messagingengine.com>

Hello r-devel,


The attached Code page 437-encoded file contains 245 characters
(including the final newline), but readLines only reads 242 of them:

> test_text <- readLines(file('437__characters.txt', encoding='437'))
Warning message:
In readLines(file("437__characters.txt",  :
  incomplete final line found on '437__characters.txt'
> test_text
[1]
"\v\f\016\017\020\021\022\023\024\025\026\027\030\031\032\033\034\035\036\037
!\"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~\177
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????"
> nchar(test_text)
[1] 242

You'll note that readLines hasn't read the final characters "??\n".

# Diagnostics

My best guess is that this is something to do with how readLines()
determines when it has reached EOF, because of the following:

- The file is terminated with an ASCII LF (0x0a), but R gives an
'incomplete final line found' warning. Note that in some implementations
of Code page 437, 0x0a is interpreted as a graphical character rather
than a control character, but this does not seem to be the problem here.
The same problem occurs if the file ends with 0x0d or 0x0d 0x0a.
- Adding seven or more characters to the end of the file makes it read
correctly
- Similarly, the file is read correctly if you remove three characters
from anywhere in the file
- The same issue seems to occur with reading files encoded in other DOS
code pages

# Additional information

> sessionInfo()
R version 3.2.3 (2015-12-10)
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin14.5.0 (64-bit)
Running under: OS X 10.10.5 (Yosemite)

locale:
[1] en_GB.UTF-8/en_GB.UTF-8/en_GB.UTF-8/C/en_GB.UTF-8/en_GB.UTF-8

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

The same behaviour occurs under R 2.15.1 on a Linux server.

In case the attached file is somehow corrupted, here is a hexdump:

00000000: 0b0c 0e0f 1011 1213 1415 1617 1819 1a1b  ................
00000010: 1c1d 1e1f 2021 2223 2425 2627 2829 2a2b  .... !"#$%&'()*+
00000020: 2c2d 2e2f 3031 3233 3435 3637 3839 3a3b  ,-./0123456789:;
00000030: 3c3d 3e3f 4041 4243 4445 4647 4849 4a4b  <=>?@ABCDEFGHIJK
00000040: 4c4d 4e4f 5051 5253 5455 5657 5859 5a5b  LMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[
00000050: 5c5d 5e5f 6061 6263 6465 6667 6869 6a6b  \]^_`abcdefghijk
00000060: 6c6d 6e6f 7071 7273 7475 7677 7879 7a7b  lmnopqrstuvwxyz{
00000070: 7c7d 7e7f ffad 9b9c 9da6 aeaa f8f1 fde6  |}~.............
00000080: faa7 afac aba8 8e8f 9280 90a5 999a e185  ................
00000090: a083 8486 9187 8a82 8889 8da1 8c8b a495  ................
000000a0: a293 94f6 97a3 9681 989f e2e9 e4e8 eae0  ................
000000b0: ebee e3e5 e7ed fc9e f9fb ecef f7f0 f3f2  ................
000000c0: a9f4 f5c4 b3da bfc0 d9c3 b4c2 c1c5 cdba  ................
000000d0: d5d6 c9b8 b7bb d4d3 c8be bdbc c6c7 ccb5  ................
000000e0: b6b9 d1d2 cbcf d0ca d8d7 cedf dcdb ddde  ................
000000f0: b0b1 b2fe 0a                             .....


Has anyone encountered something similar?


Kind regards,

Adam Obeng


[Rd] readlines() truncates text file with Codepage 437 encoding
Adam Obeng