Huge fan of defensive coding.

I saw the "skip 58 lines" concept above and shuddered. More war stories than I can count stem from inheriting that kind of blind faith logic.

Give me something -- anything I can rely on -- in the data itself, and the shakes subside.

I know it works. It works a lot. But it also fails a lot. Line counting for me is a tool of last resort unless I can be convinced the data format is solid.

And I'm a hard sell in that department. Too many war wounds.

:: shudder ::