Allowed reading of "broken" system files which have -1 as the number of data

[pspp-builds.git] / doc / data-file-format.texi

diff --git a/doc/data-file-format.texi b/doc/data-file-format.texi
index b2fc27e5fc85df2b77d8e1bc775073f694c704ed..6307ae17e7e57c9aeb943ef36ee5402ce94557f5 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/data-file-format.texi
+++ b/doc/data-file-format.texi
@@ -94,6 +94,9 @@ file's endianness.
 Number of data elements per case.  This is the number of variables,
 except that long string variables add extra data elements (one for every
 8 characters after the first 8).
+When reading system files, PSPP will use this value unless it is set
+to -1, in which case it will determine the number of data elements by
+context.  When writing system files PSPP always uses this value.
 
 @item int32 compressed;
 Set to 1 if the data in the file is compressed, 0 otherwise.