Re: [Alephmodular-devel] Random rumblings on files and errors

[Br'fin <br...@ma...>]

On Thursday, January 30, 2003, at 06:46  AM, Michael Adams wrote:

>
> --- Dietrich Epp <die...@zd...> wrote:
>>
>> Is there really a difference between text and binary
>> mode?  I thought
>> that was all arcane.  I've never liked C++
>> iostreams, they have only
>> served to add compile time and code size in the
>> megabytes to my projects.
>
> Yes, there is a difference.  I've had files
> incorrectly read when the wrong one is used.  Just
> like ASCII vs. Binary FTP it can become a problem when
> newlines are converted.  This happens on at leat Win32
> because a \n in code becomes a \r\n in the file and
> vise versa.  I've seen quite a few bugs happen that
> way.
>
On unix and Mac systems the bit of text vs binary is generally arcane. 
They may use different line endings, but they don't process that 
character on input/output. Oddly enough, the most common system, 
Windows, is the one that has a problem with it. Unless you specify a 
file to be binary when opening it, then there is a chance of having all 
your \n mishandled. (Expanding to \r\n when writing out, or munged 
together when reading in)

-Jeremy Parsons