From: porkchop@invalid.foo

On Fri, 05 Dec 2025 17:42:30 -0800, Keith Thompson wrote:

> There is no completely reliable way to do this, but you might be
> able to make a reasonable guess.  A binary file might happen to
> contain only byte values that represent printable characters.

I suspected this was going to be the case actually.

> Please use the term "null bytes", not "NULL bytes".  NULL is a standard
> macro that expands to a null pointer constant.

Okay, will do.

> It seems odd to say that a file is assumed to be binary if you can't
> open it.  I suggest having the function return more than two distinct
> values:
>
> - File seems to be binary
> - File seems to be text
> - Could be either
> - Something went wrong
>
> An enum is probably a good choice.

Aye, that's an interesting way to look at it.

> 0x00 -> '\0'
> 0x20 -> ' '
> 0x09 -> '\t'
> 0x0A -> '\n'
> 0x0D -> '\r'

Well, I got too fancy there...

> Depending on how far you want to get into it, distinguishing between
> text and binary files is anywhere from difficult to literally
> impossible.

Thanks for your expertise Keith, I appreciate your insight.

--
:wq
Mike Sanders

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