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  1. #1
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    Compressing a File by its Binary

    Hi, sorta new here so hope its cool I ask this, I search the forum, but I may have missed if someone has done this befor.

    I'm still new to VB coding and i'm still learning it from my high school class I am taking. I do programing with other langs so i'm not totally new to programing it self. Also i'm using VB5 at my house but have VB6 at school.

    My question is, can VB read and write binary data files?

    If so, how would you go about reading its binary data I tried with the code below but not sure if i'm doing it right, cuase when it displays the data it shows it as a Dec. not its Bin. From there I want to take its binary data and try and find a mathmatical expression that, when work out, will be the same with the 1s & 0s.
    Code:
    Private Sub Form_Load()
    
    Dim srcFile As String
    Dim destFile As String
    Dim B() As Byte
    Dim FileLength As Long
    
    srcFile = "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\hi.txt"
    destFile = "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\hi1.txt"
    
    Open srcFile For Binary Access Read As #1
    FileLength = FileLen(srcFile)
    ReDim B(1 To FileLength)
    Get #1, , B
    For i = 1 To FileLength
      txt = txt & B(i) & vbCrLf
    Next i
    Close #1
    
    Open destFile For Binary Access Write As #1
    Text1.Text = txt
    Close #1
    
    End Sub

  2. #2
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    Re: Compressing a File by its Binary

    Nope. That's how to read a TEXT file... Line by line.

    This is BINARY. You read it all at once. Then, I used an API to copy the contents to a string and used it as the function result
    Code:
    Option Explicit
    
    Public Declare Sub CopyMemory Lib "kernel32" Alias "RtlMoveMemory" (pDst As Any, pSrc As Any, ByVal ByteLen As Long)
    
    Public Function ReadFile(Filename As String) As String
      Dim FNum As Integer
      Dim Contents() As Byte
      Dim sStr As String
      Dim Length As Long
      FNum = FreeFile
      On Local Error GoTo ErrorRtn
      Open Filename For Binary As #FNum
      If LOF(FNum) = 0 Then
        Close #FNum
        Exit Function
      End If
      ReDim Contents(LOF(FNum))
      Get #FNum, , Contents(): Close #FNum
      Length = UBound(Contents)
      sStr = String(Length, " ")
      CopyMemory ByVal sStr, Contents(0), Length
      ReadFile = sStr
    ExitRtn:
      Exit Function
    ErrorRtn:
      MsgBox Err.Number & " - " & Err.Description, vbCritical, App.Title
      Resume ExitRtn
    End Function
    David

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  3. #3
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    Re: Compressing a File by its Binary

    I got your code working, but feels the same as the code I used befor hand. SO how would you go about seeing the binary data, I have a feeling the computer automagicly converting the binary data back into ascii keys?

    Just for example.
    I have a text file with the number 3 in it. I know by converting the 3 you would get the binary code of 0011. I get the 3 with your code and with the other code I get its Bin instead of its binary.
    Last edited by Mradr; March 28th, 2009 at 11:31 PM.

  4. #4
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    Re: Compressing a File by its Binary

    When you read a binary file or any file in binary mode you get the bytes not the bits 0s and 1s [bits] make up the bytes but they are read as bytes you would have to do a conversion on this data to see the actual string of 0s and 1s

  5. #5
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    Re: Compressing a File by its Binary

    If it were text, you could convert each character one at a time, but if some other program created it, then you'd have to know the format that was used to write the data.
    David

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  6. #6
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    Re: Compressing a File by its Binary

    Quote Originally Posted by dglienna View Post
    If it were text, you could convert each character one at a time, but if some other program created it, then you'd have to know the format that was used to write the data.
    Oh I know that, but I want to make a more powerfull compression software that can in a way compress all softs of data by its binary, if I can read the bits the 1s and 0s, then I can convert that to a higher base and then use a mathmatical expression to get the ones and zeros again.


    So DataMiser how would you go about converting the bytes to bits?

  7. #7
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    Re: Compressing a File by its Binary

    Not really sure. I know it can be done but never had a need to do it. Not sure how it would help you though as they are already written to the file in hex which means 256 possible bit patterns per byte.

    I suppose it would be possible to expand on the hex base to use more letters than the conventional A-F. In theory you might be able to get a pretty good compression rate with such a method but I have not tried this either. Then again that is just a thought. It may not help at all.
    Last edited by DataMiser; March 29th, 2009 at 01:14 PM.

  8. #8
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    Re: Compressing a File by its Binary

    On second thougt I do not think that would work as you still would not be able to write a value outside the range of hex into a single byte.

  9. #9
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    Re: Compressing a File by its Binary

    Quote Originally Posted by DataMiser View Post
    On second thougt I do not think that would work as you still would not be able to write a value outside the range of hex into a single byte.
    True, you cant, but I figure you could hit this 2 differnt ways.

    1. Way is to find a math problem that just spit out 1s and 0s when givin a number or two so when work out it give the same order of 1s and 0s as the org. copy.
    *So for example from 0110,1010,1011,1110,1010,1110,1010,1111,0111, to just the number 43 (0100,0011), do a little math 43^2*3 = the bits as befor*

    2. Another is to convert Hex numbers into base 64 (1-9-abc-!-/) so any number higher then 15 and lower then 64 will get a size cut of one half. From there you can do another math problem like we did with binary, that will use base 64, and spit out the a number that when work out in our decompression code be the same order as the org. copy again.
    Last edited by Mradr; March 29th, 2009 at 01:57 PM.

  10. #10
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    Re: Compressing a File by its Binary


  11. #11
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    Re: Compressing a File by its Binary

    Here is something I threw together based on the examples in the link above. Basically I just modified the sample a little.

    it expects to see the numeric value for the byte as would be returned by the ASC() function

    Code:
    Public Function ByteToBinary(ByVal byte_value As Byte) As String
    
    Dim hex_string As String
    Dim digit_num As Integer
    Dim digit_value As Integer
    Dim nibble_string As String
    Dim result_string As String
    Dim factor As Integer
    Dim bit As Integer
    
        ' Convert into hex.
        hex_string = Hex$(byte_value)
    
    
        hex_string = Right$( "00" & hex_string, 2)
    
        ' Read the hexadecimal digits
        ' one at a time from right to left.
        For digit_num = 2 To 1 Step -1
            ' Convert this hexadecimal digit into a
            ' binary nibble.
            digit_value = CLng("&H" & Mid$(hex_string, _
                digit_num, 1))
    
            ' Convert the value into bits.
            factor = 1
            nibble_string = ""
            For bit = 3 To 0 Step -1
                If digit_value And factor Then
                    nibble_string = "1" & nibble_string
                Else
                    nibble_string = "0" & nibble_string
                End If
                factor = factor * 2
            Next bit
    
            ' Add the nibble's string to the left of the
            ' result string.
            result_string = nibble_string & result_string
        Next digit_num
    
        
    
        ' Return the result.
        ByteToBinary = result_string
    End Function
    Last edited by DataMiser; March 30th, 2009 at 12:27 PM.

  12. #12
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    Re: Compressing a File by its Binary

    Open a RTF file, as either binary or text. Try to encrypt that...
    David

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  13. #13
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    Re: Compressing a File by its Binary

    What would be the point?

    It does not matter if the file is an rtf, jpg, bin, exe or whatever. The goal is to compress the file rather than encrypt it though it would result in a cryptic file. At any rate the decompressed file will be an exact match to the original no matter what type of file we started with. The only question is how much can it be compressed. I would think RTF could be compressed dramatically.
    Last edited by DataMiser; March 30th, 2009 at 02:58 PM.

  14. #14
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    Re: Compressing a File by its Binary

    Quote Originally Posted by dglienna View Post
    Nope. That's how to read a TEXT file... Line by line.

    This is BINARY. You read it all at once.
    Just so our readers are aware there is no rule that you must read a binary file all at once. you can read 1 byte at a time if you like [slow but it does work]
    You can read it in blocks of pretty much any size you wish. [larger is generally better]

    You can read it into a structure defined using the type definition

    You can read it a few bytes at a time into a INT a LONG, a DOUBLE, a String, an array or whatever.

    With binary access you can read it pretty much anyway you want it is depending on the results you are looking for what would be the best way to go about it.

    For example you may want to read 256 bytes from a file that is 1 gig in size and the bytes are located at the end of the file. No need to read the whole file when you can just seek to the position 256 from the end and read the 256 bytes you want.

    If on the other hand you want to read a text file line by line you would not be advised to use binary access at all. Instead use the input option as the open type and use line input statements to get each line.

  15. #15
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    Re: Compressing a File by its Binary

    The following piece of code
    Code:
      ReDim Contents(LOF(FNum))
      Get #FNum, , Contents(): Close #FNum
      Length = UBound(Contents)
      sStr = String(Length, " ")
      CopyMemory ByVal sStr, Contents(0), Length
      ReadFile = sStr
    could be written as

    Code:
      sStr = String(LOF(FNum), " ")  
      Get #FNum, , sStr: Close #FNum
      ReadFile = sStr
    Same result, no api calls needed and likely will run faster

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