Jason> Given the context (stdin/stdout/stderr), I'd love to know what
Jason> you're thinking of here. I can't name a program offhand that
Jason> wants to operate on binary data via a pipeline.
You've obviously never used the netpbm (nee pbmplus, nee pbm) tools. I
still use this pipeline to capture a window fairly frequently:
xwd | xwdtopnm | pnmtopng > window.png
I believe ImageMagick also operates by means of filter programs transforming
binary data.
Jason> There are a few that *can*, like gzip, but my impression is that
Jason> even those aren't often used that way anymore.
Only because the true believers have been overrun by the unwashed masses who
need to use a GUI as a crutch. I use g(un)?zip and b(un)?zip2 as filters
all the time. It's that elegant Unix model of computing I grew up with.
Lots of small tools do one thing well instead of a massively bloated tool
that has a swiss army knife drawer full of options.
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