So, why not use binary formats?
If binary formats are more efficient, why not use them all the time? • Binary files are difficult for humans to read. When a person sees a sequence of 4 bytes, he has no idea what it means (it could be a 4-letter word stored in ASCII). If he sees the 10 ASCII letters 4000000000, he knows it is a number. • Binary files are difficult to edit. In the same manner, if a person wants to change 4 Billion to 2 billion, he needs to know the binary representation. With the ASCII representation, he can simply put in a “2″ instead of the “4″. • Binary files are difficult to manipulate. The UNIX tradition has several simple, elegant tools to manipulate text. By storing files in the standard text format, you get the power of these tools without having to create special editors to modify your binary file. • Binary files can get confusing. Problems happen when computers have different ways of reading data. There’s something called the “NUXI” or byte-order problem, which happens when 2 computers with d
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