"Tron Thomas" <tr*********@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:a4*************************@posting.google.co m...
What does binary mode for an ofstream object do anyway? Despite which
mode the stream uses, operator << writes numeric value as their ASCII
representation.
Yes << for for text output, write is for binary output.
I read on the Internet that it is possible to change the behavior of
operator << so it will stream numeric values as their actual values
when an ofstream is in binary mode. I did not, however, find any
information on how this can be accomplished. What is involved in
getting this to work?
That is garbage.
Given that it might be complicated to change the behavior of operator
<< for binary streams, I would like to be able to determine how an
object should serialize itself to a stream so that numeric values are
written as their actually value for binary streams and as their ASCII
representation for text streams. How can this be done?
There are no such things as binary streams and text streams. Streams are
just streams. File streams can be opened in binary mode or text mode, but
you can do text output on a stream opened in binary mode, and you can do
binary output on a stream opened in text mode (not advisable though).
Text mode, binary mode is commonly misunderstood. In text mode the
implementation is allowed to make certain transformations of characters read
and written, a common example is converting \n to \r\n on output on PC
systems. This makes perfect sense if you are doing text output but it is
disastrous if you are doing binary output.
Text output use <<, binary output use write, and if you are planning on
binary output then open in binary mode so you don't get any character
transformations.
john