[fpc-pascal] WORD (2 bytes) to String conversion

[M Pulis]

On Oct 25, 2009, at 3:09 PM, Paul Nicholls wrote:

> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Graeme Geldenhuys" <graemeg.lists at gmail.com 
> >
> To: "FPC-Pascal users discussions" <fpc-pascal at lists.freepascal.org>
> Sent: Friday, October 23, 2009 11:10 PM
> Subject: [fpc-pascal] WORD (2 bytes) to String conversion
>
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm reading in a WORD (2 bytes) from a binary file. I can display the
>> Hex format of that value without a problem, but I would also like to
>> display the String value of that WORD variable. It's the first 2  
>> bytes
>> of a file, which contains the "magic number" of the file.
>>
>> I would like my program to output the following:
>>
>> -----------------
>> Header Section
>> header.ID    (5348h = "HS")
>> ...
>> -----------------
>
> Hi Graeme,
>   What about something like this (variant records, similar to C  
> unions)? (untested, ie. from memory, but shoud work)
>
> TMyHeader = Packed Record
>   Case Integer Of
>       0 : (ID     : Word);
>       1 : (IDStr : String[2]);
> End;

Doesn't String[2] imply a length byte followed by 2 bytes for content  
= 3 bytes for a Pascal string? Even a C string of two characters  
content is 3 bytes.

Just my $.03

Gary