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🧱 Binary Files

Binary files store raw bytes instead of text characters. Use binary modes "rb" and "wb" when working with images, PDFs, compressed data, or custom protocols.


✅ Reading/Writing Bytes

data = b"\x00\x01\x02"

with open("blob.bin", "wb") as f:
    f.write(data)

with open("blob.bin", "rb") as f:
    back = f.read()

✅ Chunked Reading (Large Files)

chunk_size = 8192
with open("big.bin", "rb") as f:
    while True:
        chunk = f.read(chunk_size)
        if not chunk:
            break
        # process chunk

🔍 Key Takeaways

  • Text uses encodings; binary is raw bytes.
  • Use chunked IO for large files.
  • Hashing (like SHA-256) is a common binary-file operation.

Back: Module 10 README