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I have been trying to modify the default background color for an X11 application, and the instructions are to edit its app-defaults file. In my past experience, these have been easily modifiable text files. But for one particular application, my app-defaults file appears to be in some sort of binary format. Is this normal, and how can I modify this file?

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Are you sure it isn't just corrupted? – grawity Mar 16 '11 at 12:21
It could be, I don't know. Are they always text files? – marshall.ward Mar 16 '11 at 20:07
What does the file command output when run on the app-defaults file? – grawity Mar 16 '11 at 22:36
@grawity: Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64 – marshall.ward Mar 16 '11 at 23:52

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Application default files are always text. There is no such thing as binary application default files. In fact, files like ~/.Xdefaults which are processed with xrdb must be suitable as input to a C preprocessor. If your file looks like a binary file it probably got overwritten with binary content somehow. Just restore it from your backups :-)

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Yeah, I just ended up deleting the file and making a new one. Thanks for looking into this necro thread though, I'll give you credit for it :). – marshall.ward May 13 '11 at 11:39

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