open TextIO;

(* test if a character is white space *)
fun white(" ") = true
|   white("\t") = true
|   white("\n") = true
|   white(_) = false

fun getWord(file) = (* read one word *)
		if endOfStream(file) then ""
		else
			let
				val c = inputN(file,1)
			in
				if white(c) then ""
				else c^getWord(file)
			end;

fun getList1(file) = (* read all words from an instream *)
		if endOfStream(file) then nil
		else getWord(file) :: getList1(file);

(* read all words from a file given the file name *)
fun getList(filename) = getList1(openIn(filename));