Read/Write Binary Files

[Ahankhah]

Dear all:),

Is it possible to read/write a binary file from Visual LISP:?

[Lee Mac]

You could use the methods associated with the FileSystemObject as demonstrated by these courtesy of MP:

 

http://www.theswamp.org/index.php?topic=17465.0

 

Or you could use the ADO Stream object:

 

;;-----------------=={ Read Binary Stream }==-----------------;;
;;                                                            ;;
;;  Uses the ADO Stream Object to read a supplied file and    ;;
;;  returns a variant of bytes.                               ;;
;;------------------------------------------------------------;;
;;  Author: Lee Mac, Copyright © 2011 - www.lee-mac.com       ;;
;;------------------------------------------------------------;;
;;  Arguments:                                                ;;
;;  filename - filename of file to read.                      ;;
;;  len      - number of bytes to read                        ;;
;;  (if non-numerical, less than 1, or greater than the size  ;;
;;   of the file, everything is returned).                    ;;
;;------------------------------------------------------------;;
;;  Returns:                                                  ;;
;;  Variant of Binary data which may be converted to a list   ;;
;;  bytes using the relevant VL Variant functions or used     ;;
;;  with LM:WriteBinaryStream.                                ;;
;;------------------------------------------------------------;;

(defun LM:ReadBinaryStream ( filename len / ADOStream result ) (vl-load-com)
 
 (setq result
   (vl-catch-all-apply
     (function
       (lambda ( / size )
         (setq ADOStream (vlax-create-object "ADODB.Stream"))
         (vlax-invoke ADOStream 'Open)
         (vlax-put-property   ADOStream 'type 1)
         (vlax-invoke-method  ADOStream 'loadfromfile filename)
         (vlax-put-property   ADOStream 'position 0)
         (setq size (vlax-get ADOStream 'size))
         (vlax-invoke-method  ADOStream 'read (if (and (numberp len) (< 0 len size)) (fix len) -1))
       )
     )
   )
 )
 (if ADOStream (vlax-release-object ADOStream))

 (if (not (vl-catch-all-error-p result))
   result
 )
)

;;-----------------=={ Write Binary Stream }==----------------;;
;;                                                            ;;
;;  Uses the ADO Stream Object to write a variant of bytes to ;;
;;  a specified file. File is created if non-existent or      ;;
;;  overwritten if found.                                     ;;
;;------------------------------------------------------------;;
;;  Author: Lee Mac, Copyright © 2011 - www.lee-mac.com       ;;
;;------------------------------------------------------------;;
;;  Arguments:                                                ;;
;;  filename - filename of file to read.                      ;;
;;  data     - variant of binary data to write to the file.   ;;
;;             (as returned by LM:ReadBinaryStream)           ;;
;;------------------------------------------------------------;;
;;  Returns:  Filename of specified file, else nil.           ;;
;;------------------------------------------------------------;;

(defun LM:WriteBinaryStream ( filename data / ADOStream result ) (vl-load-com)
 
 (setq result
   (vl-catch-all-apply
     (function
       (lambda ( )
         (setq ADOStream (vlax-create-object "ADODB.Stream"))
         (vlax-put-property ADOStream 'type 1)
         (vlax-invoke ADOStream 'open)
         (vlax-invoke-method ADOStream 'write data)
         (vlax-invoke ADOStream 'savetofile filename 2)
       )
     )
   )
 )
 (if ADOStream (vlax-release-object ADOStream))

 (if (not (vl-catch-all-error-p result))
   file
 )
)

Edited March 2, 2011 by Lee Mac

[Ahankhah]

Excellent Lee Mac:D

[Fidelojo]

Hi,

 

so I'm using ZWCAD and it has a file called 'AppAutoLoad.app' which stores all script files paths from Startup Suite. If I paste new path in it it works fine, accepts it and loads it upon next running of CAD software but it seams to be a binary file because when I write to it using write-line command some weird characters are written. I tried writing content to it using LISP scripts provided here by Lee Mac and it work fine when using both functions together, the content is read as a variant and that variant has been written back like this:

(LM:WriteBinaryStream (findfile "../AppAutoLoad.app") (LM:ReadBinaryStream (findfile "../AppAutoLoad.app") nil))

 

So that worked fine in ZWCAD, but when I tried constructing variant object on my own it won't work, I tried looking on multiple forums, reading docs I could find about it, but I can't make it work, this is the function I made for appending new content to the file:

(defun MM:AppendToBinaryFile ( path text / fileData )
	(setq text (mapcar 'ascii (MM:strToLst text)) ; Converting text to list of corresponding ASCII values
		  fileData (vlax-variant-value (LM:ReadBinaryStream path nil))) ; Reading variant value of the existing file data

	(if fileData ; Check if there is any existing data
		(setq fileData (reverse (vlax-safearray->list fileData))) ; Convering data to list of ASCII values and reversing it for appending new values
	)

	(foreach letter text
		(setq fileData (cons letter fileData)) ; Adding every new character to the existing data
	)
	
	(setq fileData (reverse fileData) ; Reversing values to restore proper order
		  vlax-vbByte 17 ; Setting value for non-existing variant type
		  byte-array (vlax-make-safearray vlax-vbByte (cons 0 (1- (length fileData))))) ; Creating empty safearray of appropriate size

	(vlax-safearray-fill byte-array fileData) ; Filling safearray with full data (old + new)

	(setq fileData (vlax-make-variant byte-array (+ vlax-vbArray vlax-vbByte))) ; Creating variant object

	(LM:WriteBinaryStream path fileData) ; Writting data back to file

	(princ)
)

 

Also MM:strToLst is just a function that splits string into list of characters, I'll post it if someone needs it for testing:

(defun MM:strToLst ( str / )
	(if (> (strlen str) 0)
		(cons (substr str 1 1) (MM:strToLst (substr str 2)))
		nil
	)
)

 

Can anyone help on this topic or point on some error in my code? I did some testing and final safearray seems to keeps containing zeroes only even after filling it but I don't know why is that, I tried to fix it somehow but without success.

I am also sending the file I am working with. After reading the content, vlax-variant-type command gives me code 8209.

AppAutoLoad.app

[mhupp]

Rather then reading the file and then writing it back with new data added just open the file in append mode. aka add the data you want at the end.

 

;; Example usage:
;; (MH:AppendText "C:/path/to/your/file.txt" "This is a new line of text")

(defun MH:AppendText (filename text / file)
  (vl-load-com)
  (setq file (open filename "A")) 'open file in append
  (if file
    (progn
      (write-line text file)
      (close file)
      (princ (strcat "\nText appended to " filename))
    )
    (princ (strcat "\nError: Could not open " filename))
  )
  (princ)
)

 

also ZWCAD might now be able to use some of the Visualisp commands like vlax- and vl-

[Fidelojo]

12 hours ago, mhupp said:

Rather then reading the file and then writing it back with new data added just open the file in append mode.

Thanks for advice, I tried that already but no success, it seams like is not possible to write to binary files using standard write-line command. That's why I went from this solution from Lee Mac which is using ADO Stream object and it works fine when reading with LM:ReadBinaryStream and then writing the result of that function (whic is vlax-variant) back to the file using LM:WriteBinaryStream, but when I try creating my own vlax-variant object and write it back to the file it doesn't go as expected.

 

12 hours ago, mhupp said:

also ZWCAD might now be able to use some of the Visualisp commands like vlax- and vl-

Yes. it does, I'm using them in my code, but problem occurs while building vlax-variant object which is needed for writing data back to the file, somehow only zeroes are written and I can't figure out why.

[Lee Mac]

FWIW, you can change this:

(mapcar 'ascii (MM:strToLst text))

 

To:

(vl-string->list text)

 

An untested suggestion: where the variant is concerned, rather than using hardcoded variant & safearray datatypes, try querying the types of the original variant & safearray using:

vlax-variant-type
vlax-safearray-type

 

 

[Fidelojo]

2 hours ago, Lee Mac said:

FWIW, you can change this:

(mapcar 'ascii (MM:strToLst text))

 

To:

(vl-string->list text)

Thanks for this, learned something new, much cleaner and easier.

 

2 hours ago, Lee Mac said:

An untested suggestion: where the variant is concerned, rather than using hardcoded variant & safearray datatypes, try querying the types of the original variant & safearray using:

vlax-variant-type
vlax-safearray-type

I tried your suggestion, but didn't work, I also did some more testing and the reading of the data is done properly, the appending of the new content is done properly, and then I think the problem occurs when creating safearray using value 17 or in other words using VisualLisp variant data type vlax-vbByte, which is unsupported according to this post.

So the value that has been returned from vlax-variant-type performed on result of reading with (LM:ReadBinaryStream (findfile "../AppAutoLoad.app") nil) is 8209 which is value of vlax-vbArray(8192) combined with vlax-vbByte(17), but since the vlax-vbByte data type seems to be unsupported I guess that I can't recreate the variant of the same type (8209) anymore?

[BIGAL]

I looked at the file and its plain ascii text, are you sure need to write a binary file ? I used to have DEBUG so could look at a file and see if its plain text or binary.

 

Can you post a file that has more than one line please.

 

Just a comment in Acad and Bricscad the start up suite is contained in the registry.

[Fidelojo]

6 hours ago, BIGAL said:

I looked at the file and its plain ascii text, are you sure need to write a binary file ? I used to have DEBUG so could look at a file and see if its plain text or binary.

So when I open the file it's readable but when I try to write to it using write-line command the characters are displayed in a file as some unknown symbols, so I can't claim for sure that it's a binary file but it's only reason that comes to my mind that can cause such behavior, in addition those functions for reading and writing binary by Lee worked on a file flawless in combo.

But yeah, I can't tell for sure it's a binary file, but it's my assumption.

 

6 hours ago, BIGAL said:

Can you post a file that has more than one line please.

Sure, provided below.

 

6 hours ago, BIGAL said:

Just a comment in Acad and Bricscad the start up suite is contained in the registry.

Thanks for info, I know that because I have Acad at home so I looked into it but on work I searched through whole ZWCAD registry and there's nothing in there, but on the other side I didn't found AppAutoLoad.app file anywhere among Acad files, so I guess ZWCAD put it in a file instead of registry (not sure why but that's how it is).

AppAutoLoad.app

[Lee Mac]

The file is not a binary file, it is just a plain text file using UTF-16 big endian encoding (most text files are ANSI). To read/write it, you cannot use open/read-line/write-line on AutoCAD, as these do not support Unicode double-byte encoding.

 

Instead, you can use the ADO Stream object - here are some existing examples from VovKa:

https://www.theswamp.org/index.php?topic=39617.0

[BIGAL]

Like Lee inside Notepad++ is the correct encoding and it is detected which is why I could read.