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Advantage of Binary files

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What is the advantage of binary files over text files?

Are they easier to work with?

What makes them so special?
Oct 15 '07 #1
1 2829
oler1s
671 Expert 512MB
All data on the computer is binary. Text is just a way of interpreting binary data. You arbitrarily set a number to a real world language alphabet.

Example, I decide the number 1 means a. Or maybe the number 400 means a. Or maybe 666 means a. It's arbitrary, yes. The most common in usage is ASCII though.

A text file is thus a binary file that has been interpreted as text, following some arbitrary mapping of numbers to letters.
Oct 15 '07 #2

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