From help-octave-request at che dot utexas dot edu  Mon Jan 23 08:31:09 1995
Subject: Re: Raw file i/o
From: przemek at rrdjazz dot nist dot gov (Przemek Klosowski)
To: guido at aia dot RWTH-Aachen dot DE
Cc: jwe at che dot utexas dot edu, help-octave@che.utexas.edu
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 1995 09:20:47 -0500

There has been some discussion of binary data file formats in octave, with
several people suggesting extensions to handle various binary data types.

I would suggest that instead of inventing yet another scheme for
portable binaries, octave uses some standard method. I would recommend
using the HDF library, which provides architecture-independent binary
data format, plus it allows for self-describing data (it is possible
to store attributes with the data, such as the data topology
(rank/dimensions), units, equations used to generate the data.)

	przemek