Text file Vs Binary files

Binary is faster. Consider an integer stored in 32 bits

(4 bytes), such as 123456. If you were to write this out
as binary (which is how it is represented in the
computer) it would take 4 bytes (ignoring padding
between items for alignment in structures).
To write the number as text, it has to be converted to a
string of characters (some overhead to convert and
memory to store) and then written it out, it will take at
least 6 bytes as there are 6 characters to respresent
the number. This is not including any additional
padding such as spaces for alignment or delimiters to
read/seperate the data.
Now if you consider it you had several thousands of
items, the additional time can add up and require more
space, which would take longer to read in and then
there is the additonal time to convert back to binary
for storage after you have read the value into memory.
The advantage to text, is that it is much easier to read
for persons, rather then trying to read binary data

These files are designed to store text and thus all

values that are input or output from/to them can
suffer some formatting transformations, which do
not necessarily correspond to their literal binary
value.