View Blob Data in Binary Format

[Hugues]

The Blob viewer is great if you have text or files, but I store byte streams and would like to see them in binary mode. Would it be possible to add a button to the Blob viewer and display the data in Binary mode? For example, in Text, you would see 01234 but in binary, 0x3031323334.

I currently export the column to a text file which I then open in a hex editor, but this is not very efficient.

Thank you.

[peterlaursen]

I believe this is a very reasonable request. After all binary data is first of all binary data!

But per tradition BLOB fields are mostly used for text and pic's but of course it can be anything! Multimedia (small sound and video clips for instance – or just pic formats not supported by yog), binary data sampled at industrial equipment, communication equipment etc, .. and you name it!

Ideally it should also be able to edit and/or launch an external application for editing and save changes transparently back to the base. A couple af user-definable buttons that can be assigned to external applications could maybe be done ????

But probably users with needs like this are relatively few.

[Ritesh]

You mean something like what an Hex Editor e.g. AXE shows?

[peterlaursen]

Hugues must ask for himself!

But I don't know AXE.

But have a look at Textpad http://www.textpad.com.

[peterlaursen]

No

Hugues must ANSWER for himself … 😮

[Hugues]

Actually, I use UltraEdit as my Hex/Text/Code editor. But the basic need is quite simple. It doesn't require editing (other users might need it however), but simply to display the bytes in HEX of the data in the Blob. This can even be done in the “Results as Text” view. This feature is present in Microsoft's Query analyser for SQLServer. Basically, and I can only talk about my need here, is to have a display like this:

0x12006FAA120105

and (in the best case scenario) to be able to be able to split it like this

0x12006FAA 12 01 05 (to split into “fields” of data gathered)

for debuging purposes (but obviously not save this result as it is not hex any more)

I guess you could say that you view the hex data in a text field.

Does this clarify?

[peterlaursen]

I just can add that display of data in Ultraedit and Textpad is very similar!

[Hugues]

Would it be possible to simply show the hex string in the “Show Results in Text” and/or in the Viewer directly? This would be much more convenient than to open an external viewer.

[peterlaursen]

By the way …

In the long run I'd like the BLOB viewer to support more pic formats.

I believe there are GDK's (Graphical Devolpment Kits) available – among those the one use by the GIMP. I think it should be an option to have such a GDK working as as a plugin to the BLOB-viewer when it's installed on the system. There is another GDK availble from http://www.xnview.com (but I don't think this one is C-ready).

[Hugues]

As an example, here is a sample output

NOW:

ID Type TerminalID DataBlob DateInserted

—

---

---

---

---

1 0 0 0000-00-00 00:00:00

WHISH:

ID Type TerminalID DataBlob DateInserted

—

---

---

---

---

1 0 0 0x213300F1AA0005 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Sorry for all these posts, I just felt that my point was not clear enough…

[peterlaursen]

Agreed.

There should be a button name somthing like “Hex view”.

When data makes sence as text the BLOB-viewer should open in “text-mode”. When data make sense as graphics it should open in “pic mode”. And when neither is true is it should open i “Hex-mode”. In case data is “misinterpreted” as text by the viewer you should be able to switch to hex-mode manually,

But still I think the possibility of launching an external apllication could be very useful in some cases (for instance sound, video, proces data).

[sergius]

I'd like the hex view and external viewer features, too.

[Ritesh]

Thanks to all for taking the time and having a discussion on the issue.

I have forwarded it to my development team. I believe its already in the TO-DO list of v4.1.

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