Holding a file as a resource in a C++ .exe

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

Steve McLellan - 23 Feb 2005 15:58 GMT

Hi,

Many apologies if this is the wrong group; if anyone can suggest a better
one please do.

I need to write a very small C++ (Win32, not .NET) application that will
essentially do a file copy after running some code to decide where to copy
the file to. Ideally I'd like to contain the file inside the EXE so that
from the user's point of view they download one file and it does what it's
supposed to do. I could equally do the same with a zip file containing the
file and a batch file to do the copy.

I can't find any information about whether it's possible to include a file
as a resource, and be able to treat it as a file from within the
application. Has anyone got any ideas?

Thanks,

Steve

Reply to this Message

David Lowndes - 23 Feb 2005 17:22 GMT

>I can't find any information about whether it's possible to include a file
>as a resource

It is possible Steve, see "User-Defined Resource" in MSDN.

> and be able to treat it as a file from within the
>application.

You'll need to treat it as a stream of data.

Dave

Reply to this Message

Steve McLellan - 23 Feb 2005 17:49 GMT

> >I can't find any information about whether it's possible to include a
> >file
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>
> You'll need to treat it as a stream of data.

Hi David,

OK, thanks, I'll check that out.

Steve

Reply to this Message

Serge Baltic - 24 Feb 2005 11:56 GMT

DL> It is possible Steve, see "User-Defined Resource" in MSDN.

>> and be able to treat it as a file from within the application.

DL> You'll need to treat it as a stream of data.

You could make use of the following functions to extract it at runtime:

FindResource
LoadResource
LockResource
SizeofResource

(the first three should be used in the given sequence)

Also, a file can be addressed via the res:// protocol from the browser.

Signature

Serge

Reply to this Message

Steve McLellan - 24 Feb 2005 12:23 GMT

> DL> It is possible Steve, see "User-Defined Resource" in MSDN.
>>> and be able to treat it as a file from within the application.
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>
> Also, a file can be addressed via the res:// protocol from the browser.

Hi Serge,

Thanks for the reply. I'd prefer not to read it at all if possible - the
application doesn't need to read the contents of the file, just be able to
copy it to a local disk location. But I guess writing it as a stream is a
reasonable solution and certainly seems to be much easier looking at the
API.

Thanks again,

Steve

Reply to this Message

Holding a file as a resource in a C++ .exe

Free Magazines