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Re: Binary versus Text

• From: Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>
• To: Steve Newcomb <srn@coolheads.com>
• Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 17:42:04 +0000

On 24 Nov 2013, at 15:39, Steve Newcomb <srn@coolheads.com> wrote:

> As a practical matter, is there *any* difference between text and binary
> data *other* than the necessity of worrying about record-end handling in
> the former, but not in the latter?
> 

Reminds me of the problems we used to have in ICL because our mainframe binary files (in particular those used to hold object code) had significant record boundaries: they weren't just a sequence of bytes, but a sequence of records each holding a sequence of bytes. It became very difficult to transfer these to and from other (Unix and Windows based) systems that didn't recognise such a concept.

Michael Kay
Saxonica

• References:
  • Binary versus Text
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>
  • Re: Binary versus Text
    • From: Steve Newcomb <srn@coolheads.com>