From: fjh AT cs DOT mu DOT OZ DOT AU (Fergus Henderson) Subject: Re: ASCII and BINARY files. Why? 29 Jan 1997 04:48:43 -0800 Approved: cygnus DOT gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com Distribution: cygnus Message-ID: <199701291119.WAA09847.cygnus.gnu-win32@murlibobo.cs.mu.OZ.AU> Content-Type: text Original-To: jqb AT netcom DOT com (Jim Balter) Original-Cc: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com (gnu-win32) In-Reply-To: <32EE5CD4.69DB@netcom.com> from "Jim Balter" at Jan 28, 97 12:08:52 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Original-Sender: owner-gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com Jim Balter, you wrote: > > Fergus Henderson wrote: > > > > Le me repeat: we're trying to port GNU software to Windows. > > Do you have a better suggestion on how to do this? > > [...] yes, I suggest that the approach that has been taken by AT&T's > UWIN, of abandoning the text/binary distinction altogether, > is the best, most robust, lowest surprise factor, lowest cost > approach. That approach makes interoperability between gnu-win32 software and non-gnu-win32 software impossible. It is *not* a low suprise factor approach, because users will be continually surprised when they try to use gnu-win32 tools on a Windows text file, or use Windows tools on a gnu-win32 text file. (Incidentaly, gnu-win32 already optionally supports that approach: you can mount filesystems in binary mode. It's not the default, for reasons stated above.) > Files that contain CR's can be filtered, That would break POSIX compatibility, and would cause lots of suprises for binary files that happen to contain CRs. > and/or the library > could allow a special name form such as dos:filename that causes it to > open the file in "text" mode. Well, that's a constructive suggestion, but (a) requiring users to use a special filename would be very inconvenient and error-prone, and (b) that still doesn't solve the problem of using Windows tools on gnu-win32 text files. -- Fergus Henderson | "I have always known that the pursuit WWW: | of excellence is a lethal habit" PGP: finger fjh AT 128 DOT 250 DOT 37 DOT 3 | -- the last words of T. S. Garp. - For help on using this list, send a message to "gnu-win32-request AT cygnus DOT com" with one line of text: "help".