CopyFile docx makes hidden conversion to doc - delphi

i got a Delphi 7 program which has to copy a docx file. I'm using the Windows API CopyFile function. The problem is that this function seems to make a hidden conversion to the older doc format.
First thing: the file size increases after the copy.
Second: When opening the file in Office 2007 i got an error message stating that: Check your permissions to the document or disk, check free disk space.
And than the strange thing: if i change in TotalCommander the extension of the copied file from docx to doc it opens normally. So it seems to make a hidden conversion dont know why.
Tested on two different computers. Both Win XP Prof SP3, Office 2007 Prof Plus SP2
Any ideas?
Function body is below:
function TDlgNowySzablon.PobierzPlikNaDoc() : string;
var
openDlg : TOpenDialog;
begin
Result:='';
openDlg:=TOpenDialog.Create(self);
openDlg.Filter:='Dokumenty Microsoft Word (*.doc;*docx)|*.doc;*.docx';
if openDlg.Execute then begin
Result := IObsSzab.GetTempFullFileName( ExtractFileExt(openDlg.FileName) );
if not CopyFile(PChar(openDlg.FileName),PChar(Result),true) then begin
Result:='';
end;
end;
openDlg.Free;
end;

Try changing your code as follows:
Result := IObsSzab.GetTempFullFileName('.tmp');
Result := ChangeFileExt(Result, ExtractFileExt(openDlg.FileName));
I think your GetTempFullFileName function is truncating .docx to .doc. It's all guesswork though!
The CopyFile function does not modify the contents of the file.

Related

Delphi TZipFile extracts zero byte files

Using Delphi XE2 and the native TZipFile I attempt to extract the contents of a downloaded zip file (which contains 2 zipped XML files) and it always extracts zero byte files.
The file is being compressed by C# code like this:
var zipFile = new ZipFile();
foreach (Tuple<string, string> t in filesMeta) {
zipFile.AddFile(string.Format("{0}{1}", StaticVariables.WebServerFileStorage, t.Item2), "").FileName = t.Item1 + ".xml";
}
response.Clear();
response.ContentType = "application/zip";
zipFile.Save(response.OutputStream);
response.End();
The Delphi extraction code is this:
zipFile := TZipFile.Create;
try
filename := 'C:\test\57f52480-ec87-4169-a820-0a65bc4ad952.zip';
if zipFile.IsValid(filename) then begin
zipFile.Open(filename, zmRead);
zipFile.ExtractAll('C:\test\');
end;
finally
zipFile.Free;
end;
I even tried using a TStream as the source instead of a file on disk. That's actually what I want to do since the zip file is downloaded from a web server into a TStream. I tried to extract the data using the overloaded open method of TZipFile to open the stream.
That got me zero byte files so I saved the zip file to disk and tried to open the file from disk and extract. Same zero byte files are extracted.
I even tried using the class method to extract the files from the zip file on disk:
System.Zip.TZipFile.ExtractZipFile(filename, 'C:\Test\');
Same zero byte files extracted.
The zip file is valid and the 2 zipped XML files can be extracted properly by both Windows 7 native file handling and 7-Zip.
Now here is something nutty...
In desperation I tried to see what the ExtractToFile() procedure
David Heffernan came up with in this question about extracting a zip to a stream would do so I tried using it like this:
var x : integer;
var fileCount : integer;
var fileNames : TArray<string>;
begin
zipFile := TZipFile.Create;
try
filename := 'C:\test\57f52480-ec87-4169-a820-0a65bc4ad952.zip';
if zipFile.IsValid(filename) then begin
zipFile.Open(filename, zmRead);
fileCount := zipFile.FileCount;
fileNames := copy(zipFile.FileNames, 0, MaxInt);
zipFile.Close;
for x := 0 to fileCount-1 do begin
// Use David Heffernan's stream procedure
ExtractToFile(filename, x, 'C:\test\' + fileNames[x]);
end;
end;
finally
zipFile.Free;
end;
end;
And David's procedure extracts the files to disk as expected! WTF???
I am really confused why a convoluted method of extraction would work and the simple extraction method would not work. I'll use David's example if I have to but I'd prefer to get the normal extract working if possible.
Any ideas are appreciated.
Cheers!
TJ
I had this same problem.
The source code to TZipFile shows that the TStream passed into the Read function returns the entire zip file with position set to the start of the filename you're wanting. So don't rewind. Just copyfrom or do what you want with the TStream for the uncompressed length given in the TZipHeader.
ZipStream := TStream.Create;
ZipFile.Read(MyFileName, ZipStream, ZipHeader);
//leave ZipStream pointer where it is!!!
SomethingElse.LoadFromStream(ZipStream, ZipHeader.UncompressedSize);
ZipStream.Free;
In my opinion, TZipFile should really load the ZipStream with only what is requested. The way this is implemented is not intuitive without first going through the TZipFile source code.
TL;DR: The solution to my problem was an external component. Zip Forge (or Abbrevia)
Read on for details.
Nothing I tried except for the roundabout way of saving the file and re-opening it using David's function worked. While that would have worked, it was not optimal as it required me to save the downloaded file to disk first and reopen it for extract and then delete the zip file. My goal was to just open the downloaded stream and extract the files directly to disk. One write to disk and no temporary file.
We even tried two different C# libraries to zip the files and both gave the same results on the streamed data. The Delphi TZipFile component could not handle it.
It turns out we have a license to ZipForge which I had forgotten about since I had not used it in ages it and that handles the download stream from the C# web server and extracts the files successfully.
For reference, I also tried the Abbrevia component version 5.2 and that also successfully extracted the files from the stream.
Hopefully this will help someone else.
All the suggestions by David and Uwe were appreciated.
Cheers!
TJ

Exception with German Umlaut characters in TMemIniFile.Create

I have an .URL file which contains the following text which contains a German Umlaut character:
[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/44358
[MyApp]
Notes=Special Test geändert
Icon=default
Title=Bug fix list for RAD Studio XE8
I try to load the text with TMemIniFile:
uses System.IniFiles;
//
procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var
BookmarkIni: TMemIniFile;
begin
// The error occurs here:
BookmarkIni := TMemIniFile.Create('F:\Bug fix list for RAD Studio XE8.url',
TEncoding.UTF8);
try
// Some code here
finally
BookmarkIni.Free;
end;
end;
This is the error message text from the debugger:
Project MyApp.exe raised exception class EEncodingError with message
'No mapping for the Unicode character exists in the target multi-byte
code page'.
When I remove the word with the German Umlaut character "geändert" from the .URL file then there is NO error.
But that's why I use TMemIniFile, because TIniFile does not work here when the text in the .URL file contains Unicode characters. (There could also be other Unicode characters in the .URL file).
So why I get an exception here in TMemIniFile.Create?
EDIT: Found the culprit: The .URL file is in ANSI format. The error does not happen when the .URL file is in UTF-8 format. But what can I do when the file is in ANSI format?
EDIT2: I've created a workaround which does work BOTH with ANSI and UTF-8 files:
procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var
BookmarkIni: TMemIniFile;
BookmarkIni_: TIniFile;
ThisFileIsAnsi: Boolean;
begin
try
ThisFileIsAnsi := False;
BookmarkIni := TMemIniFile.Create('F:\Bug fix list for RAD Studio XE8.url',
TEncoding.UTF8);
except
BookmarkIni_ := TIniFile.Create('F:\Bug fix list for RAD Studio XE8.url');
ThisFileIsAnsi := True;
end;
try
// Some code here
finally
if ThisFileIsAnsi then
BookmarkIni_.Free
else
BookmarkIni.Free;
end;
end;
What do you think?
It is not possible, in general, to auto-detect the encoding of a file from its contents.
A clear demonstration of this is given by this article from Raymond Chen: The Notepad file encoding problem, redux. Raymond uses the example of a file containing these two bytes:
D0 AE
Raymond goes on to show that this is a well formed file with the following four encodings: ANSI 1252, UTF-8, UTF-16BE and UTF-16LE.
The take home lesson here is that you have to know the encoding of your file. Either agree it by convention with whoever writes the file. Or enforce the presence of a BOM.
You need to decide on what the encoding of the file is, once and for all. There's no fool proof way to auto-detect this, so you'll have to enforce it from your code that creates these files.
If the creation of this file is outside your control, then you are more or less out of luck. You can try to rely of the BOM (Byte-Order-Mark) at the beginning of the file (which should be there if it is a UTF-8 file). I can't see from the specification of the TMemIniFile what the CREATE constructor without an encoding parameter assumes about the encoding of the file (my guess is that it follows the BOM and if there's no such thing, it assumes ANSI, ie. system codepage).
One thing you can do - if you decide to stick to your current method - is to change your code to:
procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var
BookmarkIni: TCustomIniFile;
begin
// The error occurs here:
try
BookmarkIni := TMemIniFile.Create('F:\Bug fix list for RAD Studio XE8.url',
TEncoding.UTF8);
except
BookmarkIni := TIniFile.Create('F:\Bug fix list for RAD Studio XE8.url');
end;
try
// Some code here
finally
BookmarkIni.Free;
end;
end;
You don't need two separate variables, as both TIniFile and TMemIniFile (as well as TRegistryIniFile) all have a common ancestor: TCustomIniFile. By declaring your variable as this common ancestor, you can instantiate (create) it as any of the class types that inherit from TCustomIniFile. The actual (run-time) type is determined depending on which construtcor you're calling to create.
But first, you should try to use
BookmarkIni := TMemIniFile.Create('F:\Bug fix list for RAD Studio XE8.url');
ie. without any encoding specified, and see if it works with both ANSI and UTF-8 files.
EDIT: Here's a test program to verify my claim made in the comments:
program Project21;
{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}
uses
IniFiles, System.SysUtils;
const
FileName = 'F:\Bug fix list for RAD Studio XE8.url';
var
TXT : TextFile;
procedure Test;
var
BookmarkIni: TCustomIniFile;
begin
try
BookmarkIni := TMemIniFile.Create(FileName,TEncoding.UTF8);
except
BookmarkIni := TIniFile.Create(FileName);
end;
try
Writeln(BookmarkIni.ReadString('MyApp','Notes','xxx'))
finally
BookmarkIni.Free;
end;
end;
begin
try
AssignFile(TXT,FileName); REWRITE(TXT);
try
WRITELN(TXT,'[InternetShortcut]');
WRITELN(TXT,'URL=http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/44358');
WRITELN(TXT,'[MyApp]');
WRITELN(TXT,'Notes=The German a umlaut consists of the following two ANSI characters: '#$C3#$A4);
WRITELN(TXT,'Icon=default');
WRITELN(TXT,'Title=Bug fix list for RAD Studio XE8');
finally
CloseFile(TXT)
end;
Test;
ReadLn
except
on E: Exception do
Writeln(E.ClassName, ': ', E.Message);
end;
end.
The rule of thumb - to read data (file, stream whatever) correctly you must know the encoding! And the best solution is to let user to choose encoding or force one e.g. utf-8.
Moreover, the information ANSI does make things easier without code page.
A must read - The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!)
Other approach is to try to detect encoding (like browsers do with sites if no encoding specified). Detecting UTF is relatively easy if BOM exists, but more often is omitted. Take a look Mozilla's universalchardet or chsdet.

How to save string into text files in Delphi?

What is the easiest way to create and save string into .txt files?
Use TStringList.
uses
Classes, Dialogs; // Classes for TStrings, Dialogs for ShowMessage
var
Lines: TStrings;
Line: string;
FileName: string;
begin
FileName := 'test.txt';
Lines := TStringList.Create;
try
Lines.Add('First line');
Lines.Add('Second line');
Lines.SaveToFile(FileName);
Lines.LoadFromFile(FileName);
for Line in Lines do
ShowMessage(Line);
finally
Lines.Free;
end;
end;
Also SaveToFile and LoadFromFile can take an additional Encoding in Delphi 2009 and newer to set the text encoding (Ansi, UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-16 big endian).
Actually, I prefer this:
var
Txt: TextFile;
SomeFloatNumber: Double;
SomeStringVariable: string;
Buffer: Array[1..4096] of byte;
begin
SomeStringVariable := 'Text';
AssignFile(Txt, 'Some.txt');
Rewrite(Txt);
SetTextBuf(Txt, Buffer, SizeOf(Buffer));
try
WriteLn(Txt, 'Hello, World.');
WriteLn(Txt, SomeStringVariable);
SomeFloatNumber := 3.1415;
WriteLn(Txt, SomeFloatNumber:0:2); // Will save 3.14
finally CloseFile(Txt);
end;
end;
I consider this the easiest way, since you don't need the classes or any other unit for this code. And it works for all Delphi versions including -if I'm not mistaken- all .NET versions of Delphi...
I've added a call to SetTextBuf() to this example, which is a good trick to speed up textfiles in Delphi considerably. Normally, textfiles have a buffer of only 128 bytes. I tend to increase this buffer to a multiple of 4096 bytes. In several cases, I'va also implemented my own TextFile types, allowing me to use these "console" functions to write text to memo fields or even to another, external application! At this location is some example code (ZIP) I wrote in 2000 and just modified to make sure it compiles with Delphi 2007. Not sure about newer Delphi versions, though. Then again, this code is 10 years old already.These console functions have been a standard of the Pascal language since it's beginning so I don't expect them to disappear anytime soon. The TtextRec type might be modified in the future, though, so I can't predict if this code will work in the future... Some explanations:
WA_TextCustomEdit.AssignCustomEdit allows text to be written to CustomEdit-based objects like TMemo.
WA_TextDevice.TWATextDevice is a class that can be dropped on a form, which contains events where you can do something with the data written.
WA_TextLog.AssignLog is used by me to add timestamps to every line of text.
WA_TextNull.AssignNull is basically a dummy text device. It just discards anything you write to it.
WA_TextStream.AssignStream writes text to any TStream object, including memory streams, file streams, TCP/IP streams and whatever else you have.
Code in link is hereby licensed as CC-BY
Oh, the server with the ZIP file isn't very powerful, so it tends to be down a few times every day. Sorry about that.
The IOUtils unit which was introduced in Delphi 2010 provides some very convenient functions for writing/reading text files:
//add the text 'Some text' to the file 'C:\users\documents\test.txt':
TFile.AppendAllText('C:\users\documents\text.txt', 'Some text', TEncoding.ASCII);
Or if you are using an older version of Delphi (which does not have the for line in lines method of iterating a string list):
var i : integer;
begin
...
try
Lines.Add('First line');
Lines.Add('Second line');
Lines.SaveToFile(FileName);
Lines.LoadFromFile(FileName);
for i := 0 to Lines.Count -1 do
ShowMessage(Lines[i]);
finally
Lines.Free;
end;
If you're using a Delphi version >= 2009, give a look to the TStreamWriter class.
It will also take care of text file encodings and newline characters.
procedure String2File;
var s:ansiString;
begin
s:='My String';
with TFileStream.create('c:\myfile.txt',fmCreate) do
try
writeBuffer(s[1],length(s));
finally
free;
end;
end;
Care needed when using unicode strings....

Delphi 7 and Excel 2007 Open File Error

I am having difficulty opening a EXCEL 2007 in Delphi 7 It works for Office 2003 and below but the wonderful people at microsoft have sent an update or something and the delphi app fell over just earlier this month.
oE := GetActiveOleObject('Excel.Application');
oE.Workbooks.Open(Filename:=sFilename, UpdateLinks:=false, ReadOnly:=true); //Error
I get the following error:
'c:\Temp\Book1.xls' could not be
found. Check the spelling of the file
name, and verify that the file
location is correct.'#$A#$A'If you are
trying to open the file from your list
of most recently used files, make sure
that the file has not been renamed,
moved, or deleted'
Yet if I run the same command in VBA there is no problem.
I know this sounds stupid, but have you manually confirmed that the file exists at that location?
What exactly is the contents of sFileName, is it the full path or only the filename? When it is only the filename, maybe Excel can't find it because its current working directory is something else. If you are only passing the filename, try the full path instead.
the full code for the lookers :
uses ComObj; ..
procdure startExcel;
var
oE:Variant;
begin
try
oE := GetActiveOleObject('Excel.Application');
except
oE := CreateOleObject('Excel.Application');
end;
oE.Workbooks.Open(filename, false, false);
oE.Visible := True;
end;
source

Open an ANSI file and Save a a Unicode file using Delphi

For some reason, lately the *.UDL files on many of my client systems are no longer compatible as they were once saved as ANSI files, which is no longer compatible with the expected UNICODE file format. The end result is an error dialog which states "the file is not a valid compound file".
What is the easiest way to programatically open these files and save as a unicode file? I know I can do this by opening each one in notepad and then saving as the same file but with the "unicode" selected in the encoding section of the save as dialog, but I need to do this in the program to cut down on support calls.
This problem is very easy to duplicate, just create a *.txt file in a directory, rename it to *.UDL, then edit it using the microsoft editor. Then open it in notepad and save as the file as an ANSI encoded file. Try to open the udl from the udl editor and it will tell you its corrupt. then save it (using notepad) as a Unicode encoded file and it will open again properly.
Ok, using delphi 2009, I was able to come up with the following code which appears to work, but is it the proper way of doing this conversion?
var
sl : TStrings;
FileName : string;
begin
FileName := fServerDir+'configuration\hdconfig4.udl';
sl := TStringList.Create;
try
sl.LoadFromFile(FileName, TEncoding.Default);
sl.SaveToFile(FileName, TEncoding.Unicode);
finally
sl.Free;
end;
end;
This is very simple to do with my TGpTextFile unit. I'll put together a short sample and post it here.
It should also be very simple with the new Delphi 2009 - are you maybe using it?
EDIT: This his how you can do it using my stuff in pre-2009 Delphis.
var
strAnsi : TGpTextFile;
strUnicode: TGpTextFile;
begin
strAnsi := TGpTextFile.Create('c:\0\test.udl');
try
strAnsi.Reset; // you can also specify non-default 8-bit codepage here
strUnicode := TGpTextFile.Create('c:\0\test-out.udl');
try
strUnicode.Rewrite([cfUnicode]);
while not strAnsi.Eof do
strUnicode.Writeln(strAnsi.Readln);
finally FreeAndNil(strUnicode); end;
finally FreeAndNil(strAnsi); end;
end;
License: The code fragment above belongs to public domain. Use it anyway you like.

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