Unformatted I/O is considerably faster than formatted, because the data
are read/written just as they appear in the processor representation,
with no intermediate conversion. The conversion can also involve a loss
of precision and the formatted data require considerably more space. The
problem is that the binary format is not portable, as you point out,
although lots of conversion software exists. It very much depends on
your application.
Regards,
Mike Metcalf
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