Binary Data Files
There are two functions that are used to read from or write to a binary file:
• READBIN("file", "type", [[endian], [cols], [skip], [maxrows]])—Returns an array containing the binary data in file.
• WRITEBIN("file", "type", endian, M)—Writes an array of scalars to the binary data file named file.
Arguments
• file is a string containing the filename or the full pathname and filename.
• type is a string that specifies the data format used in the file. READBIN supports the following data types:
◦ byte - 8-bit unsigned integer.
◦ double - 64-bit floating point number.
◦ float - 32-bit floating point number.
◦ int16 - signed 16-bit integer.
◦ int32 - signed 32-bit integer.
◦ uint16 - unsigned 16-bit integer.
◦ uint32 - unsigned 32-bit integer.
• endian (optional for READBIN) indicates whether the data in the file is big-endian (high byte first) or little-endian (low byte first). Big-endian is represented by a 1, while little-endian is represented by a 0. If no value is specified, endian is assumed to be 0.
If you are not sure whether your data is written in big-endian (the Macintosh standard) or little-endian (the IBM-PC standard) format, please consult the system documentation for your data source before relying upon the accuracy of any result from READBIN or WRITEBIN.
• cols (optional) is the positive integer number of columns per row in the input file. Default is 1.
• skip (optional) is the nonnegative integer number of bytes at the beginning of the file to ignore before reading in data. Default is 0.
• maxrows (optional) is the nonnegative integer maximum number of rows of data to be read from the data file. Default is 0 (no limit).
• M is an array.