Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!husc6!bloom-beacon!adam.pika.mit.edu!scs
From: scs@adam.pika.mit.edu (Steve Summit)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: binary data files
Message-ID: <11020@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 2 May 89 05:49:44 GMT
References: <10946@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <12546@ut-emx.UUCP> <1271@l.cc.purdue.edu>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: scs@adam.pika.mit.edu (Steve Summit)
Lines: 18

In article <1271@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>There is another bad thing.  We may not have a good ASCII representation for
>the data.  One example is a multi-font system.  Another example is floating
>point data; there is no standard floating point binary, and conversion to and
>from decimal is a source of roundoff errors, which may even be serious.

Or it may be innocuous.  The data I typically manipulate is
derived from a medium-quality A/D converter with 4 or 5 digits of
precision; I'd be misleading myself if I were to take steps to
ensure that my data files could handle more.

I'm not sure what the comment about non-ASCII/multi font systems
means.  Is the implication that binary formats (bit-for-bit
copies of the machine's internal floating-point format) are
somehow less susceptible to such portability concerns?

                                            Steve Summit
                                            scs@adam.pika.mit.edu