srec_binary(5)							File Formats Manual						    srec_binary(5)

NAME

       srec_binary - binary file format

DESCRIPTION

       It is possible to read and write binary files using srec_cat(1).

   File Holes
       A  file	hole  is  a portion of a regular file that contains NUL characters and is not stored in any data block on disk.  Holes are a long-
       standing feature of Unix files.	For instance, the following Unix command creates a file in which the first bytes are a hole:

	      $ echo -n "X" | dd of=/tmp/hole bs=1024 seek=6
	      $

       Now /tmp/hole has 6,145 characters (6,144 NUL characters plus an X character), yet the file occupies just one data block on disk.

       File holes were introduced to avoid wasting disk space.	They are used extensively by database applications and,  more  generally,  by  all
       applications that perform hashing on files.

       See http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxkernel2/chapter/ch17.pdf for more information.

   Reading
       The  size  of  binary  files is taken from the size of the file on the file system.  If the file has holes these will read as blocks of NUL
       (zero) data, as there is no elegant way to detect Unix file holes.  In general, you probably want to use the -unfill  filter  to  find  and
       remove large swathes of zero bytes.

   Writing
       In producing a binary file, srec_cat(1) honours the address information and places the data into the binary file at the addresses specified
       in the hex file.  This usually results on holes in the file.  Sometimes alarmingly large file sizes are reported as a result.

       If you are on a brain-dead operating system without file holes then there are going to be real data blocks containing real zero bytes,  and
       consuming real amounts of disk space.  Upgrade - I suggest Linux.

       To make a file of the size you expect, use

	      srec_info foo.s19

       to find the lowest address, then use

	      srec_cat foo.s19 -intel -offset -n -o foo.bin -binary

       where  n  is the lowest address present in the foo.s19 file, as reported by srec_info(1).  The negative offset serves to move the data down
       to have an origin of zero.

SEE ALSO

       srec_input(1)
	       for a description of the -unfill filter

       srec_examples(1)
	       has a section about binary files, and ways of automagically offseting the data back to zero in a single command.

COPYRIGHT

       SRrecord version 1.58
       Copyright (C) 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 Peter Miller

       The SRrecord program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details use the 'SRrecord -VERSion License' command.  This is free software and
       you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; for details use the 'SRrecord -VERSion License' command.

AUTHOR

       Peter Miller   E-Mail:	pmiller@opensource.org.au
       //*		 WWW:	http://miller.emu.id.au/pmiller/

Reference Manual						      SRecord							    srec_binary(5)