Re: Text_IO, was: Re: Something I don't understand

[Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP>]

On 2014-02-19, Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com> wrote:
> Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
>>
>> _Totally_ agree with this. It would also be nice if one could write
>> something like this (pseudo Fortran style to get the idea across):
>> "5(I4,2X,F10.4,2X)" so you could specify the layout for 5 columns worth
>> (in this example) of data cleanly.
>
> That's not really what I meant by "simplified".  ;-)
>

:-)

>>
>> Yes, but you may need two methods. One for binary (unchanged) input and
>> one for text input with end of line conversions.
>
> Maybe.  Should the binary one return a String, or an array of bytes,
> or something else?
>

Conceptually, I would have to say an array of bytes data type distinct
from a String. This is based on my perception of a String as been
associated with text data (after all, it _is_ called a String :-)) and
that conceptually you cannot really assign such meaning to something
you have gone to the trouble to read as binary data.

What really matters is that you can guarantee the binary data will not
be altered during the I/O process, that you know the exact length of
the data, and that you can cleanly access the bytes in the binary data.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
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