Date:         Fri, 6 Feb 2009 09:47:00 -0500
Reply-To:     Lou <lpogoda@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Lou <lpogoda@HOTMAIL.COM>
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Subject:      Re: Maximum width of a text file in terms of characters
Comments: To: sas-l@uga.edu

"chumba" <vikas.dharamsattu@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:e49e32eb-3d2e-4812-8d99-fcdfb7b8e411@w1g2000prk.googlegroups.com...
>
> Hi,
>
> I was wondering if anyone knew how many characters are there in a
> sindle line of a text file?
>
> Any light will be most appreciated.
>
On a platform like Windows using FAT32, the file size limit is 1 byte less
than a full 4 gigabytes, or (2**32) - 1 bytes, according to articles on the
Microsoft web site.  A "text" file line on that file system can therefore be
within a gnat's whisker of 4GB long.  Most files have considerably shorter
lines, but how long a given line is depends on who/what created the file.