perlfunc
gods
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binmode - prepare binary files on old systems
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binmode
<FONT SIZE=-1>FILEHANDLE</FONT>
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Arranges for the file to be read or written in ``binary'' mode in operating systems that distinguish between binary and text files. Files that are not in binary mode have
<FONT SIZE=-1>CR</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=-1>LF</FONT> sequences translated to
<FONT SIZE=-1>LF</FONT> on input and
<FONT SIZE=-1>LF</FONT> translated to
<FONT SIZE=-1>CR</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=-1>LF</FONT> on output. Binmode has no effect under Unix; in
<FONT SIZE=-1>MS-DOS</FONT> and similarly archaic systems, it may be imperative--otherwise your MS-DOS-damaged
<FONT SIZE=-1>C</FONT> library may mangle your file. The key distinction between systems that need
[perlfunc:binmode|binmode()] and those that don't is their text file formats. Systems like Unix, MacOS, and Plan9 that delimit lines with a single character, and that encode that character in
<FONT SIZE=-1>C</FONT> as
<CODE>"\n"</CODE>, do not need
[perlfunc:binmode|binmode()]. The rest need it. If
<FONT SIZE=-1>FILEHANDLE</FONT> is an expression, the value is taken as the
name of the filehandle.
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