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Subject: Re: Why binary mode?
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Eric Blake schrieb:
>> This is, what I expect, after reading the Cygwin FAQ:
>> "When processing in text mode, [...] written to the file [...] 
>> you in fact get "Hello\r\n". Upon reading this combination, 
>> the \r is removed [...]".
>> Why is it in fact not removed when reading with cat?
>>     
>
> The FAQ is outdated.  Would you care to volunteer to help
> maintain it?  Reading the NEWS for coreutils, cat was changed
> upstream in the last two years or so to always be binary-only,
> to more closely comply with POSIX rules that state that
> cat must operate on all file types, not just text files.
> If cat used default mode, it would corrupt true binary
> files that lived in text mounts.
>   
OK, thanks for this hint...
And thanks too for your offer, to help maintaining the FAQ.
But unfortunately I have a boss who claims to use myself
at full capacity ;-> ... you know what I mean?


Lev Bishop schrieb:
>> Why is it in fact not removed when reading with cat?
>>     
> Because cat is required by posix to read in binmode. Try, for example: 
> $ echo peng >p.txt && read CO <p.txt && od -c <<<"$CO"
> 0000000   p   e   n   g  \n
I see, that's fine. I will use this construct instead of the command
expansion with cat. Thanks.


Norton Allen schrieb:
> Which apparently means that the original doc he referred to (Cygwin
> User's Guide, chapter "Text and Binary modes" ) should be updated. I
> think the fact that cat reads in binmode is surprising (though it makes
> sense if you think about it) so the behavior should be prominently
> noted. Certainly the shell idiom of using cat to read text files is
> widespread. Makes you wonder whether cat shouldn't have an option added
> to read in text mode (that'd be an upstream question).
>   
Lev Bishop schrieb:
> It has been discussed to add a cygwin-local cat --text option, but
> rejected on the basis that since it would be cygwin-only and
> nonstandard, one might as well use the equally nonstandard d2u instead
> of cat. I believe there was at one point some attempt to get such an
> option upstream, but upstream resisted this. I'm sure this is
> mentionned in the archives somewhere.
>   
Thanks for your explanations.

Best regards,
Sven

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