From: danielcavanagh@...
Date: 2008-12-22T10:29:16+09:00
Subject: [ruby-core:20772] Re: Working with binary strings in Ruby 1.9?

> On Sun, 21 Dec 2008 06:43:32 +1100, James Gray
<james@grayproductions.net>
> wrote:
>
>> On Dec 20, 2008, at 12:49 PM, Hadmut Danisch wrote:
>>> The code I am working on is parsing files with binary content (such as
pictures, machine code, etc.). With 1.8, I could easily use
>>>    * File.open{|f| f.read} to read the contents,
>> In 1.9 use:
>>    File.binread(���)
>
> Alternatively you can specify 'encoding: "BINARY"' eg:
>
> 	File.open(<file>, encoding: "BINARY") {|f| f.read}
> or shorter
> 	File.read(<file>, encoding: "BINARY")
>
> This will return the enire contents of the file in a "BINARY"
(ASCII-8BIT)
> string which can be accessed as in 1.8. and should be as efficient. The
only difference (as already mentioned) is that a single index (eg:
data[10]) now returns a single byte string, not a number.

and a nicer way of getting the byte value of this single character string
is data[10].ord