Thank you very much! 2010/2/4 Bob Proulx <[email protected]>
> david johann wrote: > > I tried to display binary files with 'cat': > > $ cat ~/an_audio_file.rm > > $ cat /bin/cp > > That isn't expected to behave nicely. You really shouldn't be doing that. > > > What I expected: > > ---------------- > > --> displaying unreadable chars from the binary file; > > --> and then coming back to the prompt normally! > > Unfortunately for you your expectations were incorrect. The 'cat' > program is not a file viewer program. Although it is often used to > throw file contents to the terminal that is only done with the full > knowledge that it is a "hack" and isn't a perfectly correct usage of > it. The purpose of the 'cat' program is to concatenate files to the > standard output. In this case stdout is your terminal. But your > terminal is confused by the data you have sent to it. > > Binary files contain random data. Your terminal interprets escape > sequences. That random data happens to put your terminal into a > confused state. That is not a failure of the 'cat' program nor is it > a failure of your terminal. It is a user error. > > Instead use a file browser program such as 'more', 'less', or 'most'. > > > Could you please reply to me shortly, just to know whether this report > was > > useful or not? > > Perhaps the information gained from it is useful to others who search > for similar problems. > > Bob >
