It seems, that, accepting traditional options (-b and -t), for cross-platform compatibility these utils always works in binary mode. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Get (copy ino temporary test dir) a text file. For example /etc/make.conf. 2. Convert it into DOS text format ($ unix2dos make.conf); 3. Calculate ckechsums in binary mode: $ md5sum -b make.conf 6c0880c485075df4ccf84d80856f424a *make.conf 4. Calculate checksums in text mode: $ md5sum -t make.conf 6c0880c485075df4ccf84d80856f424a make.conf Actual Results: Compare them and find matching (differs only in mode flag in filename). Expected Results: Either the results should not match or utils should not declare different modes (manual page is outdated?).
From the md5sum info page: `--binary' Treat each input file as binary, by reading it in binary mode and outputting a `*' flag. This is the inverse of `--text'. On systems like GNU that do not distinguish between binary and text files, this option merely flags each input file as binary: the MD5 checksum is unaffected. [...] The man page does not contradict this.