[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #51158] save function corrupts text / binary files when appending as binary / text respectively

[Tasos Papastylianou]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?51158>

                 Summary: save function corrupts text / binary files when
appending as binary / text respectively
                 Project: GNU Octave
            Submitted by: tpapastylianou
            Submitted on: Thu 01 Jun 2017 09:52:19 PM UTC
                Category: Octave Function
                Severity: 3 - Normal
                Priority: 5 - Normal
              Item Group: Unexpected Error
                  Status: None
             Assigned to: None
         Originator Name: Tasos Papastylianou <poacheR>
        Originator Email: 
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
                 Release: 4.2.1
        Operating System: GNU/Linux

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Details:

Consider the following code:


a = 1;
save -text binfile a
save -text textfile a
save -binary binfile a
a = 2;
save -text -append binfile a
save -binary -append textfile a
clear
load textfile a
a                 % -- a =  1
load binfile a    % -- error: load: trouble reading binary file 'binfile'


On linux I could check what kind of file it is before appending, e.g.:


system('file textfile')   % -- textfile: data
system('file binfile')    % -- binfile: Octave binary data (little endian)


but obviously, this is not a portable solution.

Proposal: If save is called with the append option, it should first check that
the file type specified is the same as the target, otherwise exit with an
error.




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