data structures using thereforea binary file is not readable by humans and it is up to the program reading the file to make sense of the data that is stored in the binary file and convert it into something meaningful ( fixed length of recordbinary files contain formatting information that only certain applications or processors can understand it is possible for humans to read text files which contain only ascii textwhile binary files must be run on an appropriate software or processor so that the software or processor can transform the data in order to make it readable for exampleonly microsoft word can interpret the formatting information in word document although text files can be manipulated by any text editorthey do not provide efficient storage in contrastbinary files provide efficient storage of databut they can be read only through an appropriate program basic file operations the basic operations that can be performed on file are given in fig file operations creation insertion updation modification retrieval deletion inquiry report generation maintenance restructuring reorganization figure file operations creating file file is created by specifying its name and mode then the file is opened for writing records that are read from an input device once all the records have been written into the filethe file is closed the file is now available for future read/write operations by any program that has been designed to use it in some way or the other updating file updating file means changing the contents of the file to reflect current picture of reality file can be updated in the following waysinserting new record in the file for exampleif new student joins the coursewe need to add his record to the student file deleting an existing record for exampleif student quits course in the middle of the sessionhis record has to be deleted from the student file modifying an existing record for exampleif the name of student was spelt incorrectlythen correcting the name will be modification of the existing record retrieving from file it means extracting useful data from given file information can be retrieved from file either for an inquiry or for report generation an inquiry for some data retrieves low volume of datawhile report generation may retrieve large volume of data from the file maintaining file it involves restructuring or re-organizing the file to improve the performance of the programs that access this file restructuring file keeps the file organization unchanged and changes only the structural aspects of the file (for examplechanging the field width or adding/deleting fieldson