can anyone a binary file?

I am wondering if anyone on this forum can read a binary file.

If there is a way to do so, I would really like to know how to do it and what is contained in this file.

I am curious on what does it take to accomplish this.

Simple and easy, all you have to do is use the 'rb' or read binary flag instead of read i.e.

gif = file('sample.gif', 'rb').read()

Mark.

I take it that you are referring to using Python to accomplish correct? Could you be a little more specific. Thank you

No he can't be more specific ... he gave you all the code you need get the data into a variable. What more could you possibly ask for?

hmmmm, so you are a programmer? I am not. The obvious to you is not obvious to me. That is why the question was asked. Now if you asked me how would a person stop a Cisco 5850 for sending dual dial tones I could answer that, but this is not about that subject. I wanted information on a subject that I am not an expert on.

Yup, all programmers here, well most of us! Nearly all have some programming experiance .

Anyway yes, small as the code is, Python makes it amazingly easy...

Mark.

P.S. if i ever have a problem with that (Cisco 5850) i'll know where to come

I think I understood what he asked.

He is asking that if when faced with a random textfile you can just open it with any text editor and read what's in it, can you do the same with a binary file.

The short answer is no. I you have no idea whatsoever in what format the data in the file is, you can't use it. It like being dumped into japan without a dictionnary and being expected to understand japanese.

The long answer is that it is possible but that require a lot of efforts and time. It is called reverse-engineering. For instance, the Microsoft Office binary formats have been understood and used in the excellent OpenOffice.org