2007/8/22, Bertram Scharpf <lists / bertram-scharpf.de>:
> Hi,
>
> Am Mittwoch, 22. Aug 2007, 06:35:32 +0900 schrieb doug meyer:
> > I'm having some serious issues writing to a binary file. Can anyone
> > give me a hand?
> > And could I be having this problem because I'm trying to do this on a
> > Linux machine?
>
> I just repeat what I wrote this afternoon
> (<http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/122170#544613>).
>
> The distinction between "text" and "binary" is the archetype
> misdesign in DOS and Windows. It means nothing more than
> that in "text" mode line ends are translated from "\n" to
> "\r\n" what is of no use but to disturb file positions and
> string lengths. The only purpose of this is to detain
> programmers from doing anything in a non-Microsoft way.
> Anywhere else you don't need to care.
>
> Sorry for the flame but that's the way it is.

I prefer to just take it as given that different operating systems
treat line endings differently and go from there. I can't remember
that this caused an issue for me: I open binary files with "rb" and
text files with "r" on all platforms.  I even find this helps
understanding the code better (documentation). And I cannot remember a
single case where someone processed a text file and needed exact file
positions; line numbers are typically more interesting.

Relax :-)

robert