Converting a binary file to ascii and vice versa?


 
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# 1  
Old 10-03-2013
Converting a binary file to ascii and vice versa?

Hi All,
I have a binary file which is being exported from a Database, and i need to convert that to ASCII format. How can i achieve that? And this solution should work for any file which is given to us; means they will give different files from different tables.

Thanks in advance.
# 2  
Old 10-03-2013
strings is a rather generic way of extracting printable text from binary files:

Code:
STRINGS(1)                   GNU Development Tools                  STRINGS(1)

NAME
       strings - print the strings of printable characters in files.

What kind of "file" is it? Unless you know how to decode the file, that might be the closest you get, and there would be no vice-versa.

Last edited by Scott; 10-03-2013 at 05:01 AM.. Reason: Probably not a LOB!
# 3  
Old 10-03-2013
Hi Scoot,
THanks for the reply, As i told its a file extracted from a database table with '~' as a delimitter; The file might contain arbitrary No. of columns each time. Strings is not converting the entire file properly as expected. Is there any other command/script that will help me?
# 4  
Old 10-03-2013
You never mentioned anything about a ~ delimiter!

Run file filename against the file. What does it say?

And what exactly do you want to do once you've "converted" it to ASCII, before you convert it back again?

Without seeing a sample of the file, and with your description and requirement being as vague as they are, I would have no idea what to suggest here.
# 5  
Old 10-03-2013
okey
when i run file filename it gives data

Actullay converting to ASCII is enough - After converting i need to scp that file to another server and it will be consumed by some other downstream applications

The converse is just to check whether the file file has been converted properly or not.

The file will have data extracted from a table. A mix of character, date, number and everything.

Is this helpful, please lemme know if u need more details?
# 6  
Old 10-03-2013
data is the most generic of terms and could mean anything. Assuming you mean it's the result of some SQL query, then you still need to post some of it before anyone can know what to do with it. And you need to be much more specific about what you mean by converting it to ASCII. Without knowing exactly what you mean by data and without seeing some of it, I don't know how you can expect any help here.
# 7  
Old 10-03-2013
I will try to post some of the data, watever i have it has some PII so this is the information i have as of now

'Binary' = 2-byte integer, n, followed by n bytes of data. In this format:

The data is prefixed by a record-length marker.

The record-length marker does not include the length of the marker
itself.

The record-length is not part of the transmitted data.


If possible you can help me with this if not i will try to post some sample data. but if i try to open the .dat file it shows junk character is that the expected behaviour? THanks.
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