NAME

       srec_binary - binary file format

DESCRIPTION

       It is possible to read and write binary files using srec_cat(1).

   File Holes
       A  file  hole  is  a portion of a regular file that contains NUL characters and is not stored in any data
       block on disk.  Holes are a long‐standing feature of  Unix  files.   For  instance,  the  following  Unix
       command creates a file in which the first bytes are a hole:

              $ echo -n "X" | dd of=/tmp/hole bs=1024 seek=6
              $

       Now /tmp/hole has 6,145 characters (6,144 NUL characters plus an X character), yet the file occupies just
       one data block on disk.

       File  holes  were  introduced  to  avoid  wasting  disk  space.   They  are  used extensively by database
       applications and, more generally, by all applications that perform hashing on files.

       See http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxkernel2/chapter/ch17.pdf for more information.

   Reading
       The size of binary files is taken from the size of the file on the file system.  If the  file  has  holes
       these  will  read as blocks of NUL (zero) data, as there is no elegant way to detect Unix file holes.  In
       general, you probably want to use the -unfill filter to find and remove large swathes of zero bytes.

   Writing
       In producing a binary file, srec_cat(1) honours the address information and  places  the  data  into  the
       binary  file  at  the  addresses  specified  in the hex file.  This usually results on holes in the file.
       Sometimes alarmingly large file sizes are reported as a result.

       If you are on a brain‐dead operating system without file holes then there  are  going  to  be  real  data
       blocks containing real zero bytes, and consuming real amounts of disk space.  Upgrade - I suggest Linux.

       To make a file of the size you expect, use

              srec_info foo.s19

       to find the lowest address, then use

              srec_cat foo.s19 -intel -offset -n -o foo.bin -binary

       where  n  is  the  lowest address present in the foo.s19 file, as reported by srec_info(1).  The negative
       offset serves to move the data down to have an origin of zero.

SEE ALSO

       srec_input(1)
               for a description of the -unfill filter

       srec_examples(1)
               has a section about binary files, and ways of automagically offseting the data back to zero in  a
               single command.

COPYRIGHT

       SRrecord version 1.64
       Copyright  (C)  1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,
       2013, 2014 Peter Miller

       The SRrecord program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details use the 'SRrecord  -VERSion  License'
       command.   This  is  free  software  and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; for
       details use the 'SRrecord -VERSion License' command.

MAINTAINER

       Scott Finneran   E‐Mail:   scottfinneran@yahoo.com.au
       Peter Miller     E‐Mail:   pmiller@opensource.org.au

Reference Manual                                     SRecord                                      srec_binary(5)