From: Han Holl <han@...>
Date: 2002-06-02T19:16:59+09:00
Subject: Re: Reading binary files (or strings)

>
>
>
>Since it doesn't have #unpack:
>
>require 'stringio'
>
>class Dotqread
>  def initialize(fn)
>    @blob = StringIO.new(File.open(fn) {|f| f.read})
>  end
>  def wordread
>    @blob.read(2).unpack("s")[0]
>  end
>  def longread
>    @blob.read(4).unpack("L")[0]
>  end
>  def txtread
>    Opstring.new(@blob.read(wordread))
>  end
>end
>
>  
>
It certainly looks nicer than
  def wordread
    a = @blob.unpack("@#{@offset}s")[0]
    @offset += 2
    a
  end
or
  def wordread
    @offset += 2
    @blob.unpack("@#{@offset - 2}s")[0]
   end

but as far as I can see, you have to check for EOF before each 
{word|long|txt}read,
or you risk calling nil.unpack() ?

Cheers

Han