Jari said:
To open binary files, on Windows the statement:
File.new("myfile", "rb")
is required.
The docs just seem to say that the "b" is a Windows-only thing, not what
happens on other platforms. Will the "b" flag just be filtered out on
Linux/OS X?
1) Different os's use different characters for newlines.
2) In Ruby, and other languages, when you read or write a file, ruby
automatically converts all newlines from any os to: '\n'. That way,
when you write a file, you can have your code write a '\n' to the file
and ruby will take care of converting the '\n' to the proper newline for
your system. Likewise, when you read a newline from a file, you can
assume the newline is a '\n' because ruby will convert the actual
newline to a '\n'. In other words, you can write code that assumes '\n'
is the newline on any os--even though the actual newline for that os may
be something else.
3) When you open a file in binary mode, you are directing ruby *not* to
do any newline conversions. That means you can no longer assume the
newlines are '\n'. The newlines you read will be the actual newlines
that are in the file. Similarly, you can no longer write a '\n' to the
file and expect ruby to convert it to the proper newline for the os. In
other words, what you read from a file is exactly what's in the file,
and what you write to the file is exactly what's in your write or puts
statement.
4) Because newlines on unix are a '\n', ruby doesn't have to do any
conversions when you read or write a text file in normal mode.
Therefore, if you open a file in binary mode on a unix os, which tells
ruby not to do any conversions, there is no difference. What you read
from a file is exactly what's in the file, i.e. the newline in the file
and what ruby returns to you as the newline are identical, and when you
write a '\n' to the file, an actual '\n' gets written to the file.
