Editing Binary file (section)

==Binary compatibility==
{{For|[[binary code]] [[executable file]] compatibility|Binary compatible}}

Two files that are binary compatible will have the same sequence of zeros and ones in the data portion of the file. The file header, however, may be different.

The term is used most commonly to state that data files produced by one application are exactly the same as data files produced by another application. For example, some software companies produce applications for [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]] and the [[Macintosh]] that are binary compatible, which means that a file produced in a Windows environment is interchangeable with a file produced on a Macintosh. This avoids many of the conversion problems caused by importing and exporting data.

One possible binary compatibility issue between different computers is the [[endianness]] of the computer. Some computers store the bytes in a file in a different order.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Applications/r-binary.shtml|title=NCL: Reading binary data|website=www.ncl.ucar.edu|access-date=2017-10-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171012100213/https://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Applications/r-binary.shtml|archive-date=2017-10-12|url-status=dead}}</ref>