The Rogue Wave classes include four types of classes that specialize RWvistream and RWvostream. The first uses a portable ASCII formatting, the second and third a binary formatting, and the fourth an XDR formatting (eXternal Data Representation, a Sun Microsystems standard):

The portable ASCII versions store their inserted items in an ASCII format that escapes special characters (such as tabs, newlines, etc.) in such a manner that they will be restored properly, even under a different operating system. The binary versions do not reformat inserted items, but store them instead in their native format. The endian versions allow for the space and time efficiency of binary format, but can store or retrieve the information in big endian, little endian, or native format. XDR versions send their items to an XDR stream, to be transmitted remotely over a network.

None of these versions retain any state: they can be freely interchanged with regular streams, including XDR. Using them does not lock you into doing all your file I/O with them. For more information, see the respective entries in the SourcePro API Reference Guide.