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In article <903@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>, vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn) writes:
> I have frequently been in the position of wanting to edit data files,
> either binary or text.  The files have no carriage returns or line
> feeds, and can have characters on the full 255 range.  
> 
> It seems that the tools available to me divide into two groups.  The
> first are text editors (I've used MicroEmacs, Brief, Wordstar, Norton
> Editor) which choke and gag on these files, and when they can take them
> (e.g.  Norton Editor) I have physical lines scrolling way the hell off
> the screen. 

PC-Write can edit just about anything, including binary files with
unlimited line lengths and no terminal ^Z.  However, it treats some of
the early control characters as font change codes (no big deal, but it
does change color after those codes); it doesn't handle individual
carriage returns and line feeds as gracefully as you'd like; and the
long "lines" are hard to edit.

> The second class are hex editors (e.g. Norton Utilities, PC Tools, a PD
> program called FM) which allow hex and decimal editting, and wrap nicely
> into 20 or so character lines, but don't allow inserting, deleting,
> search, mark, cut, copy, etc.

PC Tools Deluxe has a "word processor" that can do those things; I
don't know if it can handle binary files.  (Quite possibly not, since I
think it might have automatic reformatting.)  The View/Edit function
has both hex and Ascii views in Deluxe.  (Caveat user:  I've been able
to hang my PC by Viewing a Smalltalk/V image.  No problems with .EXEs or
other large binary files.)

I don't know if PC Tools Deluxe View/Edit has a search function.  You
could always use DEBUG.

Bear in mind that many binary files have either fixed length or length
prefixed records.  Inserting, deleting, or even moving arbitrary data
in such files will make those files unreadable by their applications.

> Cliff Joslyn, vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu
> | Systems Science Department, SUNY Binghamton, Binghamton, NY

-Paul S. R. Chisholm, {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,rutgers}!mtune!lznv!psc
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