Binary and text streams
Factor handbook » Input and output » Streams » Stream protocol
Factor handbook » Input and output » Streams » Stream protocol
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A word which outputs the stream element type:
Stream element types:
The stream element type is the data type read and written by stream-read1 and stream-write1.
Binary streams have an element type of +byte+. Elements are integers in the range [0,255], representing bytes. Reading a sequence of elements produces a byte-array. Any object implementing the >c-ptr and byte-length generic words can be written to a binary stream.
Character streams have an element type of +character+. Elements are non-negative integers, representing Unicode code points. Only instances of the string class can be read or written on a character stream.
Most external streams are binary streams, and can be wrapped in string streams once a suitable encoding has been provided; see I/O encodings.
stream-element-type ( stream -- type )
Stream element types:
+byte+
+character+
The stream element type is the data type read and written by stream-read1 and stream-write1.
Binary streams have an element type of +byte+. Elements are integers in the range [0,255], representing bytes. Reading a sequence of elements produces a byte-array. Any object implementing the >c-ptr and byte-length generic words can be written to a binary stream.
Character streams have an element type of +character+. Elements are non-negative integers, representing Unicode code points. Only instances of the string class can be read or written on a character stream.
Most external streams are binary streams, and can be wrapped in string streams once a suitable encoding has been provided; see I/O encodings.