Re: Checking if a file is binary (non-textual)

[Jeff Clough <jeff@chaosphere.com>]

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:49:43 +0200

>> Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:34:44 +0000
>> From: Jeff Clough <jeff@chaosphere.com>
>> 
>> MS systems tried to solve this by having a bit in the filesystem entry
>> as a binary/text flag, but even that can't be trusted.
> 
> Which bit is that?  AFAIK, the text/binary distinction is entirely on
> the run-time library level, the filesystem and the low-level APIs to
> the filesystem do not distinguish between text and binary.  But I'll
> be glad to learn something new.

Oops!  This is what I get for not hacking this shit under Windows for
so long.  You are right.  As far as I can tell, this is a library
thing that simply translates certain bytes differently depending on
the mode you opened the file in.  I mis-remembered it as something at
the filesystem level.

I *knew* something was off because I remembered it couldn't be
trusted, and now I remember why.

Jeff



----------
Author of the Genesys System
A "free" universal role-playing game.
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