From 9f1e2ecb48b8ffd4e72c5cc183e71147cb22e122 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Georg Brandl Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 09:36:18 +0000 Subject: Clarify the effect of text mode. --- Doc/library/functions.rst | 4 +++- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/Doc/library/functions.rst b/Doc/library/functions.rst index 622ff5f4..665b865 100644 --- a/Doc/library/functions.rst +++ b/Doc/library/functions.rst @@ -734,7 +734,9 @@ available. They are listed here in alphabetical order. writing (truncating the file if it already exists), and ``'a'`` for appending (which on *some* Unix systems means that *all* writes append to the end of the file regardless of the current seek position). If *mode* is omitted, it - defaults to ``'r'``. When opening a binary file, you should append ``'b'`` to + defaults to ``'r'``. The default is to use text mode, which may convert + ``'\n'`` characters to a platform-specific representation on writing and back + on reading. Thus, when opening a binary file, you should append ``'b'`` to the *mode* value to open the file in binary mode, which will improve portability. (Appending ``'b'`` is useful even on systems that don't treat binary and text files differently, where it serves as documentation.) See below -- cgit v0.12