Unix binary/text files: is there a difference?

[Mark Warren]

jdubb at bucsf.bu.edu (jay dubb) writes:


>    I've looked in a bunch of C and Unix books, and can't seem to find
>a good explanation of this - maybe someone can help... Is there a way
>to tell (from a C program) whether a given file contains text or data?

There is no difference in Unix.  Other operating systems have some flags
associated with files that indicate contents, format, etc., but Unix
treats all files as uninterpreted byte streams.

Unix supplies a "file" utility that tries (usually successfully) to guess
what the file is, but it is nothing more than a guess that applies some
heuristics to the first few bytes read from the file.

Sorry, there's no guaranteed way to do it.
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 == Mark Warren                      Bull HN Information Systems Inc. ==
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