BinarySafe

Binarysafe, commonly written binary-safe, is a term used to describe software interfaces, libraries, or functions that operate on binary data in a way that preserves every byte of the input, including zero bytes, without prematurely stopping or altering the data. Binary-safe processing treats data as a raw sequence of bytes rather than a human-readable string with terminators or encoding assumptions. It is particularly important when handling file contents, network packets, cryptographic keys, or database blobs.

The concept contrasts with traditional C-style string handling, where many functions expect a null-terminated char array and may stop at the first null byte. In binary-safe interfaces, length is provided externally or the API explicitly handles arbitrary bytes, ensuring that zero bytes and non-text values are preserved.

Applications include programming languages and libraries that expose binary-safe string handling, as well as database interfaces that distinguish between text and binary data. For example, binary-safe string functions in some languages allow operations like searching, slicing, or comparing data containing null bytes; databases may store and compare BLOBs in a binary-safe manner; network APIs may parse binary protocols without misinterpreting zeros.

Limitations and considerations: binary-safety does not imply encoding neutrality or universal interoperability. Data may still have specific encodings (UTF-8, etc.), and some APIs provide binary safety but require careful handling of endianness, alignment, or character boundaries when interpreting bytes as text. In practice, developers choose binary-safe interfaces when dealing with raw or opaque data.