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I really don't know the difference between writing to a files using binary mode, and doing so using ASCII mode....so what's the difference? I once had a problem with writing a blog feature, and it only worked properly when I wrote to files with fwrite() and not fputs(), which is binary-mode writing.
Some strange operating systems distinguish between binary and text mode. If you write a newline (\n) in C in text mode, it may translate that to something else. Also, if you read that in text mode, you will see a \n. Binary mode will ensure this doesn't happen. Another side effect of text mode is that a certain character can cause the end-of-file status to be set.
Could you please give me some examples. Thanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by cwr
No, since I don't have access to any platforms that exhibit this behaviour. Try putting a Windows EOF character (0x1A) into the middle of a file, then opening it in text mode and reading from it. You may get an EOF at that point. It's been more than ten years since I programmed under Windows, so this may have changed, or my memory is hazy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Antigloss
So it's better to use binary mode rather than text mode?
Use binary mode for binary files, text mode for text files :D
Still don't quite get it...
But apparently, if you write "65" to a file in text mode, it will produce "65" as expected...in binary mode, does that translate to 'A'? I still don't see the difference in HOW it actually writes to the file.
If you write "Hello\n" to a file in binary mode, the actual bytes written are:
54 65 73 74 0A
If you write "Hello\n" to a file in ASCII mode, the bytes written are:
54 65 73 74 0D 0A - On a Windows system
54 65 73 74 0A - On a Unix/Linux system
54 65 73 74 0D - On a Mac system
In text mode, the newline character is translated to the byte (or bytes) which are used to represent newlines on that system.