Convert Hex-String To Binary Data

Legacy Poster

• June 04, 2014 13:04

Hello all,

 

I am trying to generate a DataMatrix-Barcode from data I get as a HEX-encoded binary string like this:

 

Data: 444541191C0025D6000000007F6501C70000300000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000009F554D75737465726D616E6E6F727400000000000000000000004D75737465726D616E6E737472617373650000000000313300000000000000004D6178204D75737465726D616E6E000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 

I wrote a small function to transform this HEX-String to an ANSI-String:

 

dim hex

hex = Field("field_with_hex_string")

 

dim res

res = ""

 

For y = 1 To Len(hex)

      num = Mid(hex, y, 2)

      res = res & Chr(CByte("&h" & num))

      y = y + 1

Next

 

Value = res

 

However, since the HEX-String contains the NUL-Character (0x0), neither the text below the barcode nor the barcode itself can be read further than character 5, (from above: 44|45|41|19|1C|00 -> DEA<<EM>><<FS>><<NUL>>.. <<FS>> is still shown).

 

When I imported the file into an Oracle-DB storing the HEX-String into a BLOB/Binary-Field, everything worked as expected.

 

Is there another way, to transform a HEX-String to Binary-Data??

 

I've attached my test-files, see below.

 

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  Legacy Poster

  ★ BarTender Hero ★

  • June 06, 2014 11:36

  Nobody?

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  Michael Toupin (mtoupin

  ★ BarTender Hero ★

  • June 06, 2014 17:48

  To work around this issue, change your script to:

   

  For y = 1 To Len(hextext)

        num = Mid(hextext, y, 2)

      if num = "00" then num = vbNull

      res = res & Chr(CByte("&h" & num))

        y = y + 1

  Next

   

   

  adding in the line "if num = "00" then num = vbNull" will convert the hex nul character to a vb based null character that the script editor can understand and pass into the barcode object.

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  Legacy Poster

  ★ BarTender Hero ★

  • June 06, 2014 18:21

  It works! Awesome :) 

  Thank you very much!

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  Ralf Gebhard

  ★ BarTender Hero ★

  • February 20, 2024 10:35

  bringing that thread out of the cellar....

  Above solution doesn't work because vbNull is represented as 0x01 (<SOH>) not 0x00 (<NUL>).
  The "Deutsche Post" uses binary Datamtarix ECC200.

  so lets see what happens with above code:

   if we have a hex data of "000000" eg. <NUL><NUL><NUL>  this will be converted to vbNull&vbNull&vbNull.

  and there's the failure: binary vbNull isn't 0x00 but 0x01.

  So if we have a decimal value to be converted in its hex and then binary/string equivalent:

  dec 100 -> hex 0064 -> string "<NUL>@" would be fine but the provided solution converts to
  dec 100 -> hex 0164 -> string "<SOH>@" back to decimal this is dec 356 !!!!

  I really tried a lot to render binary data in Datamatrix with Bartender, but failed with even ADODB streams, arrays, Access-Databases. It always fails when it comes to 0x00.

  Maybe anyone else has a solution for that.

  Ralf Gebhard

   

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