Disregard what I just said. The problem isn't about reading text files at all, it's about reading non-text files without explicitly opening them in binary mode. I think the trouble is with the idea that if you don't specify the mode explicitly it defaults to text mode, which on Unix just happens to be the same as binary mode. Could we change that so binary mode is the default on Unix, and if you want any line ending translation, you have to specify text mode explicitly? Is there any standard which says that text mode must be the default? Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+ University of Canterbury, | A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a | Christchurch, New Zealand | wholly-owned subsidiary of USA Inc. | greg@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz +--------------------------------------+