Let's develop an open-source media archive standard

[Fred Cisin]

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004, Roger Merchberger wrote:
> Different systems interpret binary data differently, especially if there is
> human-readable code within the file. MS-DOS very likely could think the
> file is binary, and the first hex 0x06 would terminate the file. However,

I don't think so.  06h is a PUSH ES command, which is valid in
programs/binary files.  My .EXE and .COM files that use that
instruction do NOT terminate prematurely.

But your point is still valid, in that a 1Ah (^Z) byte
WILL cause many text processing utilities to terminate
processing of a text file in MS-DOS or CP/M.


> Or -- how about transferring this file from MS-DOS <=> Linux <=> MacOS <=>
> BeOS ... will it (and if so, how will it) convert line ending chars, tabs &
> other binary chars? A hex representation will reduce conversion problems
> measurably - remember, this is supposed to be an "ultra-portable" format.

That's why any reading of a binary file, or an alien text file,
must fopen in "RAW" mode!


> If we're already going to take this "beyond" the spec, couldn't we
> institute some RLE encoding as well?

Many folks seem to think that a .ZIP file is unreadable,
and impossible to write replacements readers, if the
now existing utilities aren't available.

(as opposed to files on a ZIP disk, where none of the
drives can be expected to remain working.)