Question

How do I write a null char (ASCII 0) to a file?

Asked by: jdruin

Hello all:

I need to use ASCII character 0 as a spacer in a file becuase of the program that uses the file. I tried to use this code:

public subroutine f_writeFixedNumericField (integer outputfilehandle, String text, integer length);
      int i,z
            
      if Len( text ) > length then
            FileWrite( outputfilehandle, Left( text, length ) )
      else
            FileWrite( outputfilehandle, text )
            z = length - Len( text )
            for i = 1 to z step 1
                  FileWrite( outputfilehandle, ToANSI( String( Char(0) ) ) )
            next            
      end if
      
end subroutine

but to no avail. It seems to treat the Char(0) as undecipherable text and ignore it. Unfortunately, the program that will use the file insist on seeing the char(0) since it expects and ISAM format. I worte a program in java that will do it but I want to use power builder if possible becuase of the better GUI.

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2003-08-25 at 05:50:19ID20719137
Tags

null

,

char

,

ascii

,

java

Topic

PowerBuilder Programming Language

Participating Experts
3
Points
125
Comments
7

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. convert ASCII to char
    Who do i convert an ASCII code (stored in an int) into it's equivalent char?
  2. char to ascii value
    Here is a few lines of my pascal program a:=readkey; after I read a key and want to determine the user is pressing what key so I want to convert the char to a ascii value then I know what user pressed. How to convert a char to its ascii value ?
  3. Ascii chars
    Hi, I use a program of my own to read ascii characters from the the serial port. When I try to read ascii that an apple machine sends, something is going wrong. I've been told that I should "AND $7F for each received character" because most likely, the problem is t...
  4. Convert Float to Ascii Char string
    Guys, How to convert Float to Ascii Char string. Please don't say use ftoa() or gcvt() because my complier cannot support all the libreay function. If any one who write the C function please sen dit to me regards Terrance

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: Vikas_DixitPosted on 2003-08-25 at 06:05:28ID: 9215838

Hi,

Please clarify, do you want to use '0' or char(0) ?
Char(0) will be Null and will not be displayed in the file if you open it in an editor.

Regards,
Vikas Dixit

 

by: jdruinPosted on 2003-08-25 at 06:17:59ID: 9215918

I need to use the NULL character aka ASCII character 0. In notepad, the char shows up as a black square. Also, I wrote a utility that parses a file by the ACSII interger values of each character. After testing the output file from powerbuilder, I can see the NULL chars are not being writen. However, I think there is a way to get PowerBuilder to write these char 0 as spaces in this output file. ISAM format requires I use char 0 as the spacer and not ASCII 32.

 

by: Vikas_DixitPosted on 2003-08-25 at 11:35:38ID: 9218271

Hi,
I don't think it is possible using the powerscript.. as filewrite help says : If any argument's value is NULL, FileWrite returns NULL. So it is not going to write any char(0).

Also I don't find any ways to initialize a blob with having embedded char(0)'s in it.

You may need to use some external API for file access. You can also use VB sript in PB. Check http://www.rgagnon.com/pbdetails/pb-0125.html for details. It may be possible in VBScript.

regards,
Vikas Dixit
 

 

by: mdhamptonPosted on 2003-08-27 at 11:22:59ID: 9234550

Here is sample code that writes a single null character to a file. You can easily adapt this by just keeping the code that declares, sets and edits the bl_null_char. Note that I tried bl_null_char = Blob (Char (0)) but this created a zero length blob. I think blobedit is the only way to set a zero in a blob.

blob      {1}      bl_null_char
string       ls_file_name
int            li_file, li_ret

ls_file_name = sle_1.text
li_file = FileOpen (ls_file_name, StreamMode!, Write!, LockWrite!, Replace!)
if li_file = -1 then
      MessageBox ('Open Error', 'Could not open file ' + ls_file_name)
      return
end if

bl_null_char = Blob (String (1))
BlobEdit (bl_null_char, 1, Char (0))

li_ret = FileWrite (li_file, bl_null_char)

FileClose (li_file)

// li_ret should be 1
MessageBox ('Debug:', 'li_ret = ' + String (li_ret))

 

by: Vikas_DixitPosted on 2003-08-28 at 10:29:38ID: 9242344

Great !!

Even I tried blobedit, but the blob I took was greater than size 1, I tried to put char(0) in the middle of the blob and it didn't work..

Regards,
VIkas Dixit

 

by: mdhamptonPosted on 2003-08-28 at 15:27:18ID: 9244203

I know that you can place a char (0) at the end of a blob. I use the following code to change two arrays into name=value pairs that can be saved in the registry as a REG_MULTI_SZ: (Note that  in this case, I rely on a "feature" of blobEdit that automatically adds the null char in for you.)

// build a blob containg the key value pairs, separated by a \x00.
blob{10240}      lb
long      ll_next, l, ll_max
string    ls_pair

ll_next = 1
ll_max = upperBound (aas_keys)
for l = 1 to ll_max
      ls_pair = Trim (aas_keys[l]) + '=' + Trim (aas_values[l])
      ll_next = BlobEdit (lb, ll_next, ls_pair)
next
ll_next = BlobEdit (lb, ll_next, '') // ensure that there are two \x00 at the end
ll_next = BlobEdit (lb, ll_next, '')

 

by: sunjie7777Posted on 2004-12-30 at 00:30:55ID: 12924626

use windows API

1.declare
SUBROUTINE ZMem( REF Blob lpVoid, ulong dwSize ) LIBRARY "kernel32.dll" ALIAS FOR "RtlZeroMemory"

2.in script
blob lblb_null
ZMem(lblb_null,1)

variable lblb_null 's ASCII value is  0

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...