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| <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>More Binary Input and Output</title><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.73.2" /><meta name="keywords" content=" ISO C++ , library " /><link rel="start" href="../spine.html" title="The GNU C++ Library Documentation" /><link rel="up" href="bk01pt11ch27.html" title="Chapter 27. File Based Streams" /><link rel="prev" href="bk01pt11ch27s02.html" title="Binary Input and Output" /><link rel="next" href="bk01pt11ch28.html" title="Chapter 28. Interacting with C" /></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">More Binary Input and Output</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="bk01pt11ch27s02.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 27. File Based Streams</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="bk01pt11ch28.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr /></div><div class="sect1" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="manual.io.filestreams.binary2"></a>More Binary Input and Output</h2></div></div></div><p>Towards the beginning of February 2001, the subject of |
| "binary" I/O was brought up in a couple of places at the |
| same time. One notable place was Usenet, where James Kanze and |
| Dietmar Kühl separately posted articles on why attempting |
| generic binary I/O was not a good idea. (Here are copies of |
| <a class="ulink" href="binary_iostreams_kanze.txt" target="_top">Kanze's article</a> and |
| <a class="ulink" href="binary_iostreams_kuehl.txt" target="_top">Kühl's article</a>.) |
| </p><p>Briefly, the problems of byte ordering and type sizes mean that |
| the unformatted functions like <code class="code">ostream::put()</code> and |
| <code class="code">istream::get()</code> cannot safely be used to communicate |
| between arbitrary programs, or across a network, or from one |
| invocation of a program to another invocation of the same program |
| on a different platform, etc. |
| </p><p>The entire Usenet thread is instructive, and took place under the |
| subject heading "binary iostreams" on both comp.std.c++ |
| and comp.lang.c++.moderated in parallel. Also in that thread, |
| Dietmar Kühl mentioned that he had written a pair of stream |
| classes that would read and write XDR, which is a good step towards |
| a portable binary format. |
| </p></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="bk01pt11ch27s02.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="bk01pt11ch27.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="bk01pt11ch28.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Binary Input and Output </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../spine.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Chapter 28. Interacting with C</td></tr></table></div></body></html> |
