processing a binary file?

If you get the contents of a binary file like with
$str = file_get_contents($fname);

is there a way that you can access the elements of $str?
$str may be hundreds of kilobytes and contains binary data and I need
to process each byte of the string and write the processed byte to
another file. Something efficient like [$i]?

Kirk

Kirk Johansen wrote:
> If you get the contents of a binary file like with
> $str = file_get_contents($fname);
>
> is there a way that you can access the elements of $str?
> $str may be hundreds of kilobytes and contains binary data and I need
> to process each byte of the string and write the processed byte to
> another file. Something efficient like [$i]?
>
> Kirk

You can use strings like arrays: $str{$i} will get you the $i'th
character of the string, indexed from 0. Of course the meaning of a
single character in your string will depend on the data and it's format.

Kirk Johansen wrote:
> If you get the contents of a binary file like with
> $str = file_get_contents($fname);
>
> is there a way that you can access the elements of $str?
> $str may be hundreds of kilobytes and contains binary data and I need
> to process each byte of the string and write the processed byte to
> another file. Something efficient like [$i]?
>
> Kirk
>

Any reason why you wouldn't want to download the whole file and then
examine it in a hex editor ?

Also, you might find the folowing handy if you are thinking of looking
out for text!

<http://www.lookuptables.com/>


Richard.