Binary File I/O

Text mode is fine when the file is meant for humans to read, but it's the wrong tool for storing structured data like product records or order logs. Binary file I/O lets you write the exact bytes that make up an object to disk and read them back identically, with no formatting, parsing, or conversion in between. This chapter covers what ios::binary actually does, the read and write member functions, how to stream POD structs to disk, random access by record number, the traps around std::string and pointers, and why endianness can corrupt a file when it moves between machines.