Subject: Re: file descriptors opened as text files
From: Jean Delvare <[email-masked]>
To: "Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc)" <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 18:21:08 +0100 (MET)

> Its not a Cygwin invention.  Its a MS one.  Check out the documentation
> for open()/_open() on the MSDN.  They use the _O_BINARY flag.  Don't get me
> wrong.  I hate text mode in all its forms.  Perhaps Cygwin could've forgone
> its use here.  Maybe not.  However, doing so here follows the MS lead and
> wasn't a Cygwin concoction.
I don't use MS development softwares. That's not the point here. Cygwin
intends to provide an environment for fast port from Unix to Windows, so
what it must look and behave like is Unix, not Windows. And the fast if,
O_BINARY and O_TEXT are not defined on Unix systems. Moreover, a file
descriptor is always working in binary mode on Unix. Thus, the choice
Cygwin made here will necessary cause problems to anyone porting a
software using file descriptors, and there must (and will) be thousands,
for sure.

I strongly believe that the correct behavior would be to consider any file
descriptor as binary. People needing higher lever control are supposed to
use handles anyway, not descriptors.

-- 
       /~~       Jean "Khali" Delvare
  -----\_                        mail: [email-masked]
 --------\                http://www.ensicaen.ismra.fr/~delvare/
---=ISMRA/- ____________________________________________________

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