Byte stream
A byte stream is an ordered flow of bytes representing binary data for storage, processing, transmission, or incremental reading without inherent message semantics.
Modern C, Third Edition
A binary stream is a C stream that transfers data as sequences of bytes without text-oriented character transformations.
- How it is used
- Transfers file data without text transformations and supports reading, writing, and repositioning within binary files.
- How deep it goes
- Explains representation translation, byte counts, error detection, and file positioning through fread, fwrite, ftell, and fseek.
- Examples
- Uses an embedded source array, binary reading of __FILE__, memcmp, and writing bytes to stdout.
- What you can do after
- Operate/configure binary file I/O with fopen, fread, fwrite, ftell, and fseek.
Modern C
- How it is used
- Handles binary file data when text-stream translation could alter the file’s internal structure.
- How deep it goes
- Explains binary mode, transfer counts, file positions, and seeking, while deferring platform-specific restrictions.
- Examples
- Uses large-object representation, byte-position movement, and fread/fwrite transfer checks as practical examples.
- What you can do after
- Operate/configure C binary streams and detect incomplete transfers using fread, fwrite, fseek, and ftell.
The Quick Python Book, Fourth Edition
A byte stream is an ordered sequence of bytes representing serialized data or other binary content.
- How it is used
- Persists Python object state in binary files and restores it without manually dumping each component.
- How deep it goes
- Defines serialization and deserialization, demonstrates sequential file operations, and notes unsupported code objects and system resources.
- Examples
- Uses scalar variables, dictionaries, saved program state, and a disk-backed calculation cache.
- What you can do after
- Apply it via Python's pickle module to save and restore collections or selected program state.
Read how The Quick Python Book, Fourth Edition explains byte stream →
Related concepts
- ioused by · An io library is a software module or package that provides abstractions, interfaces, and operations for reading and writing input and output streams.
- pickleproduced by · Pickle is Python’s standard-library facility for serializing Python objects to byte streams and reconstructing them from those streams.
- io.Writerused by · io.Writer is a Go interface whose Write method accepts a byte sequence and returns the number of bytes written and any error.
- C standard libraryused by · The C standard library is the standardized collection of functions, macros, types, and related facilities provided for C programs.
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