Download and write .tar.gz files without corruption

Question

How do you download files, specifically .zip and .tar.gz, with Ruby and write them to the disk?

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This question was originally specific to a bug in MacRuby, b}

Answer 1

The last time I got currupted files with Ruby was when I forgot to call file.binmode right after File.open. Took me hours to find out what was wrong. Does it help with your issue?