Sunday, 6 November 2011

What is the difference between text and binary modes? in C programming

What is the difference between text and binary modes?

Streams can be classified into two types: text streams and binary streams. Text streams are interpreted, with
a maximum length of 255 characters. With text streams, carriage return/line feed combinations are translated
to the newline \n character and vice versa. Binary streams are uninterpreted and are treated one byte at a time
with no translation of characters. Typically, a text stream would be used for reading and writing standard text files, printing output to the screen or printer, or receiving input from the keyboard. A binary text stream would typically be used for reading and writing binary files such as graphics or word processing documents, reading mouse input, or reading and writing to the modem.

Cross Reference:

IV.18: How can I read and write comma-delimited text?

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