gzip/zcat changes file?

[Brian Stults <bstults@soc.ufl.edu>]

I am using a statistical package (Stata 7.0 for linux) that, among other 
things, can read in raw data and create a database from it.  I have an 
ascii file of data, and the program reads the data just fine.  The files 
that I work with are quite large, though, so it is useful to gzip them 
(in fact they come that way) and have the program call out to the shell 
and have it zcat the data to a named pipe and then read it from the 
pipe.  When I do this, the program will read the data, but only the 
first observation.  Can anyone think of something that gzip/zcat would 
be doing to the data to cause this behavior.  For example, could it be 
that gzip/zcat somehow strips the carriage returns such that the data 
appear to be all on one record?  I know that's not it, but perhaps 
something along those lines?

I know this is not debian-specific, but I went through tech support for 
this company and they said there was nothing they could do.

Thanks.


--
Brian J. Stults
Department of Sociology
University of Florida
Box 117330
Gainesville, Florida 32611-7330
phone:  (352) 392-0265 x286
fax:    (352) 392-6568
e-mail: bstults@soc.ufl.edu