From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2002-12-30T19:33:42+09:00
Subject: Re: WARN: mswin32 build binary file read change of behavior

On Saturday, December 28, 2002, 10:51:23 PM, Milan wrote [snipped]:

> Hello,

> Maybe it's been mentioned before, but since I've spent some time looking for
> error in my code (things broke), here it goes anyway, in case somebody runs
> into this issue (low chance, this mostly being Linux crowd, but still...).
> Maybe putting it in a FAQ isn't a bad idea.

I appreciate your forethought for the FAQ, but I'm not really sure
what sort of entry to put.  Could you please suggest a question and an
answer, and we'll discuss it, and if we get something that makes
sense, it can go in the FAQ.  Keep it on the list: the more comments
on the proposed entry, the better.

> In mswin32 builds one must explicitly specify "rb" flags.
>
> File.open( 'somebinaryfile.bin', "rb" )

I personally use the "b" flag whenever appropriate no matter what
platform I'm on.  Even though it makes no difference on Unix, the "b"
flag is still a comment to make it more clear what we expect to do
with the data.

Cheers,
Gavin