How can i open binary files (exe) in "Delphi" , like Visual basic?

Question

in visual basic i can open a binary(exe) file with below way :

Strx$ = Space(FileLen(FileName))
Open FileName For Binary As #1
  Get #1, , Strx$
Close

in this way i can read all of binary file characters and read file content like this format :

_{(source: iranblog.com)}

and the question is how can i open a binary(exe) file in delphi with a string format(Like image) and not 0,1(binary) format ?

Thank you!

What exactly do you want to do? Maybe we can suggest something better, because opening a binary file as text will most likely solve nothing. — Cosmin Prund
– Cosmin Prund, Commented Jul 16, 2010 at 9:04
A more common way to do this would be to use a hex viewer/editor component rather than just dumping stuff to the screen which is not readable. — Warren P
– Warren P, Commented Jul 20, 2010 at 20:14

Robert Love · Accepted Answer · 2010-07-16 10:37:06Z

6

EXE files contain embedded NULL (#0) Characters. You may have problems using Strings as typically NULL is found at the end of the string. Some routines will stop working with a string once the NULL is encountered.

Having said that the following would get the contents of a file into a string.

function GetFileIntoString(FileName : String) : String;
var
 SS : TStringStream;
begin
  SS := TStringStream.Create('');   
  try
    SS.LoadFromFile(FileName);
    result := SS.DataString;
  finally
    SS.Free;
  end;
end;

edited Jul 16, 2010 at 10:37

answered Jul 16, 2010 at 8:27

Robert Love

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6 Comments

glob Over a year ago

memory leak -- you should use try/finally and .free your stringStream

mjn Over a year ago

does it work with Delphi 2009 and higher too? (thinking of Unicode and default character encodings ...)

Robert Love Over a year ago

Leak Fixed. In Delphi 2009 the string will be Unicode, and prior it will be Ansi. Both will load the file into the string.

mjn Over a year ago

See forums.codegear.com/thread.jspa?threadID=31135&tstart=42 - in Delphi 2009+ TStringStream is a stream of bytes (not a stream of characters), which is fine, but accessing the DataString will process the raw bytes through the TEncoding class, which is not known in this code example.

Remy Lebeau Over a year ago

@mjustin is right. In D2009+, accessing the DataString will corrupt the bytes, unless you assign an 8-bit clean TEncoding object to the stream. Better to use TMemoryStream instead. Even better, use a memory mapping instead, then you do not have to read the file bytes into a separate memory block at all.

|

Alexander · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-06 23:35:15Z

1

Here are some good resources with examples.

Create your own Database using Delphi's "File Of" Typed Files : Understanding Typed Files.
Acessing Files With Unknown Structure: Direct Access to Files Regardless of Type and Structuring.

edited Mar 6, 2013 at 23:35

Alexander

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answered Jul 16, 2010 at 10:00

RBA

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