Re: [udf-dlm-develop] Some questions

[Ed S. <es...@la...>]

Harald,

Happy New Year, and thanks for your note.  

Allow me to preface my answers by saying that UDF-DLM is mostly a
spare-time effort for me.  My principal interest is in extracting
our (MENA) data out of UDF, and into a useful form.  If UDF-DLM
is useful to others, that's great, but I don't have the time nor
the funding to develop it into a solution for everybody. 

To that end, the source code has been released to sourceforge.net.
You can easily (45 seconds) register as a developer and use CVS
to check out the source tree, make and test your changes, then
check them back in for all to enjoy.

If you don't grok CVS, your programmers do. 

That said, I mostly have negative answers to your questions... but
perhaps you, or some enterprising hacker, can find the proper
solutions and add them to the code.


  >1. Our WIC UDF contains the 256x256 image and several more single entries
  >like the start_time, high_voltage etc. The command udf_read returns all
  >these single numbers as 256-element arrays. Why? Is there a way around? 

There _has_ to be a way around, since ADump manages to do it.  
If/when I find out how to do it, I'll add the code.  I think
it would be useful, and would like to have that feature.  Don't
hold your breath, though... it's pretty low priority.


  >2. Is it possible to get the number of records in a UDF file?

I have no idea how to do this, other than making a pass through
all records (throwing away any data read, but still going through
the overhead of reading data).  Any UDF wizards care to comment?


  >3. The udf_read procedure returns the complete structure of the
  >record. Is it possible to read only one particular variable

Nope, and I'm definitely not going to spend any time on that
one.  High complexity, low return.  Sorry...

May The Source Be With You!
^E