Brian Harvey scripsit:

> What if the file has a magic binary header followed by the rest in
> Unicode text?

Load a library that provides read-blob and can analyze parts of a blob
in different ways, including as text (that SRFI I keep promising).

> This would, for example, allow jumping around while reading a text file
> by saving the current /byte/ position and then returning to it later.

That's precisely what isn't reliable.  In ISO 2022, for example, you have
to remember not only the current byte position but up to 6 sub-encodings
(G0, G1, SS2, SS3, C0, C1) currently in effect in order to be able to
resume textual decoding.  R6RS allows for this by allowing port-position
to return an opaque object on textual files, but I think it's a big mess.

-- 
Barry gules and argent of seven and six,        John Cowan
on a canton azure fifty molets of the second.   [email protected]
        --blazoning the U.S. flag               http://www.ccil.org/~cowan

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