Unix binary/text files: is there a difference?

[Brian Silverio]

In article <77384 at bu.edu.bu.edu> jdubb at bucsf.bu.edu (jay dubb) writes:
>
>....... So, what
>I'd like to know is, is there a difference (in terms of something
>stat() could tell me, for example) between straight text files and
>files which contain raw numbers......

Try "man a.out" the key to what you are looking for is in the file header.
f_magic indicates an executable file.  Values for ascii data do not match
(or should not) match valid magic numbers.