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Re: Binary versus Text

• From: Hermann Stamm-Wilbrandt <STAMMW@de.ibm.com>
• To: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>
• Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 15:06:48 +0100

Hi,

I did once use the term "Char^*" for "text" and found these class inclusion
diagram:
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/HermannSW/entry/datapower_transformations

Of course "Char^*" byte sequences depend on the encoding used.
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#charsets


Mit besten Gruessen / Best wishes,

Hermann Stamm-Wilbrandt
Level 3 support for XML Compiler team and Fixpack team lead
WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliances
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/HermannSW/
https://twitter.com/HermannSW/     http://www.stamm-wilbrandt.de/ce/
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  From:       "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>                                                                              
                                                                                                                                     
  To:         "xml-dev@lists.xml.org" <xml-dev@lists.xml.org>,                                                                       
                                                                                                                                     
  Date:       11/24/2013 03:25 PM                                                                                                    
                                                                                                                                     
  Subject:     Binary versus Text                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                     





Hi Folks,

Distinguishing "text" versus "binary" is important.

On October 30 we had a discussion titled, "Is the binary file format dead?"

During that discussion John Cowan made an excellent distinction between
binary and text files. I thought it would be useful to summarize the
distinction.

The universe of computer files falls into two categories:

1. Binary files
2. Text files

By convention we normally restrict "binary" to files which are not
interpretable as streams of characters. [John Cowan]

The word "text" is applied to files which are interpretable as streams of
characters.

Of course any text file is also a binary file, since the class of text
files is obtained from the class of binary files by applying restrictions.
But it would be confusing to call a text file a binary file; it would be
like calling a cat a mammal: correct but imprecise.

(Embedded image moved to file: pic08809.jpg)

/Roger

Attachment: pic08809.jpg
Description: JPEG image

• References:
  • Binary versus Text
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>