From: Shashank Date <sdate@...>
Date: 2002-12-27T10:49:23+09:00
Subject: Re: Occasional Issue reading bytes of data


"Robert McGovern" <tarasis@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
> Why is it that Windows has a binary file mode? What is the effect of
> using the "b" flag on *nix platforms?

On Windows, the "text" mode automatically replaces every "\n" with two
chars: "\r\n" (ascii 10 and 13) and interprets ^Z (ascii 26) as the end of
the file. With "binary" mode there is no such conversion or interpretation.

This distinction is not seen on *nix  and hence the two modes are equivalent
(AFAIK).

> is it simply ignored?

I guess ! But I could be wrong ...

-- shanko