Our MARC loading and extracting software (internally developed for storage
in a SQL database) adds a DOS end-of-file character (hex 1A) at the end of
each file of (extracted) MARC records. Are there other systems that add this
character? The presence or absence of the character does not seem to cause
problems for our cataloging software (TLC's ITS for Windows and older
Bibliofile (DOS-based) software), but it does cause
MARC::Record/MARC::File::USMARC's _next method to fail. As a workaround, I
added the following to my local versions of MARC::File::USMARC:
#...
sub _next {
#...
# remove illegal garbage that sometimes occurs between records
#Added hex 1A in _next method, for files with that DOS EOF character at
the end of the MARC data.
$usmarc =~ s/^[ \x00\x0a\x0d\x1A]+//;
#...
}
Could the \x1A removal be added to the official MARC::File::USMARC version?
Does having hex 1A at the end of MARC files pose problems for other
software? Does not having hex 1A at the end of files cause problems for any
software? Should I recommend that our software be revised not to add this
character?
Thank you for your assistance,
Bryan Baldus
Cataloger
Quality Books, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
