Andrew,


Some comments on comments:


(1) John is right about tabs and formfeeds, and I have modified the
program accordingly.  Also, same for #define on buffer size.


(2) The idiot that thought up signed chars will be promptly hanged if
I ever become dictator.  This is the same kind of nonsense as
INETGER*2 versus INTEGER*4 in old Fortran programs, namely, that it is
better to save a byte than to save a brain cell.  I always use the
compiler switch that forces unsigned chars and thus never worry about
the issue.

Imagine, if you will, declaring all string variables as "unsigned
char" to accommodate values > 127.  Alas, there is nary an "unsigned"
in STRING.H, and I am thus forced to write the ludicrous

                strlen( (char *) (unsigned_char_ptr) )

to keep the compiler quiet.  This is unnatural and should be forbidden
by all tenets of programming decency.

( Goodness! There's a soap box at my feet-- imagine that! )


(3) As for line size, using the program as written with mono-spaced
Courier, anything over 80 chars will be truncated on the page.  This
restriction could be removed, but would complicate the program, and a
general-case solution that is not sensitive to font size or spacing
leads to word-wrap algorithms and fairly complex PS code.  My feeling
is that this would make the article less useful as a general
introduction to PostScript.  As written, any file that can be displayed
in the width of an 80-column monitor can be printed.


(4) Finally, the last "showpage" occurs at end-of-file, and thus a
terminating <CR><LF> is not generally necessary.  However, I have
adding a terminating newline just to be safe.  (The one thing you
can depemd on in this business is that you cannot depend on
anything.)


Marv Luse.