GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual

33.3: MS-DOS Subprocesses

On MS-DOS, you must indicate whether the data going to and from a synchronous subprocess are text or binary. Text data requires translation between the end-of-line convention used within Emacs (a single newline character) and the convention used outside Emacs (the two-character sequence, CRLF).

The variable binary-process-input applies to input sent to the subprocess, and binary-process-output applies to output received from it. A non-nil value means the data is non-text; nil means the data is text, and calls for conversion.

Variable: binary-process-input

If this variable is nil, convert newlines to CRLF sequences in the input to a synchronous subprocess.

Variable: binary-process-output

If this variable is nil, convert CRLF sequences to newlines in the output from a synchronous subprocess.

See Files and MS-DOS, for related information.