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File Data/Operations

What kind of data is held in files?

Text files contain ASCII characters ...

  • each byte has value in range 0..127   (7-bits unsigned)
  • typically partitioned into lines   ("\n" or "\r\n")
Binary files contain arbitrary bytes ...
  • each byte has full 8-bits available
  • sequences of bytes may be interpreted as e.g. int
Type of data in a file is determined by suffix or by content
(e.g. .c .o .txt .tex .doc .jpg .mp3 .wmv   vs   Unix file command )