From: PRI AT cddk DOT dk (Peter Ring) Subject: RE: b20.1: binmode and pipes 9 Dec 1998 09:02:00 -0800 Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: "'John A. Turner'" , "'gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com'" Yayuck (yet another yuck). As if my files were either 'text' (ISO-646 encoded, aka ASCII), or 'binary'. Counting the combination of MIME type and encoding, I've propably got several hundred 'text' file formats on my system; the simple 'text' type is next to useless. And the idea of different 'native text file formats' depending on the OS also ought to be history. My PC is running Windows NT 4.0 and I'm maintaining a product targeted for both Wintel and Macintosh, using GNU tools (e.g., make and sort). Three different conventions for record separators in sequential access variable record length files (aka text files). Why should my tools assume that I want a specific record separator, just because I'm incidentally running on Windows NT, MacOS, or Linux? Earnie points out that applications should open files "+b" if that's what they want, and not rely on any specific record separator. I agree on that; this is somewhat similar to not assuming that sizeof(int) == sizeof(*char). To continue, you shouldn't assume that 'text characters' occupy 1 byte each in the file. So, my conclusion is to treat all files as 'binary', since I anyway need to know a MIME type (e.g., 'text\sgml') and an encoding (e.g. 'UTF-8'). Forget about 'text' files. Also, do not use Notepad as a programming editor. Kind regards Peter Ring -----Original Message----- From: John A. Turner [mailto:john DOT turner AT pobox DOT com] Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 1998 07:02 To: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com Subject: Re: b20.1: binmode and pipes Corinna Vinschen wrote: > Yes, do the binary mounts! They simplify your work more than > you think! > You only have to convert your shell scripts. This is easy > by using sed, awk, perl, gsar, or vi. Yuck. I agree with Earnie Boyd and the FAQ on this point. - For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "gnu-win32-request AT cygnus DOT com" with one line of text: "help".