From: Peter Bailey <NoSpam@...>
Date: 2005-08-06T00:41:12+09:00
Subject: Re: Newbie - Help with using puts to binary file

Thanks for your super quick response Austin, I'll give that a try!

Austin Ziegler wrote:
> On 8/5/05, Peter Bailey <NoSpam@nospam.com> wrote:
> 
>>I am writing a templating system to replace tags and values in template
>>files. I am quite new to Ruby and am not sure I am going about things
>>correctly. My prog runs great on text files, rtf, etc., but I am running
>>into problems outputting to binary formats (e.g. word - sigh). My program
>>just reads the whole file into a string, works on that, and then I
>>output to another file using puts. This causes grief for word or open
>>office etc when it tries to open the newly created file.
>>
>>I tried a simple test just reading in the file and writing it out, and I
>>see that the puts adds 1 byte to the eof, a LF (working on OS X). I got
>>the impression from reading docs that the puts would not mess with my
>>ouput, but that is obviously not the case, as my simple test has shown.
>>
>>So, can anyone point me to a better way to write out the binary data so
>>that it is not altered (except by me on purpose). I looked at the data
>>input into a string, and it is correct. It is the output that is
>>breaking things.
>>
>>Any help/pointers to explanations of how puts really works etc. or
>>better alternatives much appreciated.
> 
> 
> #puts will add an LF if it isn't present at the end of the output.
> #print will not and #write will not. When I'm writing binary data, I
> tend to use IO#write.
> 
> -austin