19.13. binhex — Encode and decode binhex4 files

This module encodes and decodes files in binhex4 format, a format allowing representation of Macintosh files in ASCII. On the Macintosh, both forks of a file and the finder information are encoded (or decoded), on other platforms only the data fork is handled.

Note

In Python 3.x, special Macintosh support has been removed.

The binhex module defines the following functions:

binhex.binhex(input, output)

Convert a binary file with filename input to binhex file output. The output parameter can either be a filename or a file-like object (any object supporting a write() and close() method).

binhex.hexbin(input[, output])

Decode a binhex file input. input may be a filename or a file-like object supporting read() and close() methods. The resulting file is written to a file named output, unless the argument is omitted in which case the output filename is read from the binhex file.

The following exception is also defined:

exception binhex.Error

Exception raised when something can’t be encoded using the binhex format (for example, a filename is too long to fit in the filename field), or when input is not properly encoded binhex data.

See also

Module binascii

Support module containing ASCII-to-binary and binary-to-ASCII conversions.

19.13.1. Notes

There is an alternative, more powerful interface to the coder and decoder, see the source for details.

If you code or decode textfiles on non-Macintosh platforms they will still use the old Macintosh newline convention (carriage-return as end of line).

As of this writing, hexbin() appears to not work in all cases.