Alex Shinn wrote:

 > One interesting thing
 > I discovered was that java.io.RandomAccessFile allows you to intermix
 > reading characters and binary data on the same stream.

RandomAccessFile has limited accessability.  You could use it for
output-only ports, the standard input ports, network ports, or most
other ports you might want.

>A possible way to get more portability is to go ahead and provide the
>API for specifying port types, such as

How about:

(open-input-file path [encoding])
as in:
(open-input-file path "utf")
or:
(open-input-file path "latin-1")

#t means "default encoding" (as specified by environment).
Thus (open-input-file path) == (open-input-file #t)
#f means "binary"

Kawa instead uses "fluid" variables, but I could easily
handle an extension like the above.

(I'm travelling so I'll have to answer more fully later.)
--
	--Per Bothner
xxxxxx@bothner.com   http://per.bothner.com/