re: MSH: Is File/Content Binary?

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This is usually done via heuristics. For example, by checking if any character (or a certain percentage of characters) is outside of the printable range.

The printable range is usually (in hex):
- 0x0D, 0x0A (for newlines)
- 0x20 -> 0xFE (for text characters, including the extended ASCII set)

I use this approach in my format-hex script: http://www.leeholmes.com/blog/HexDumperInMonad.aspx

One point about this approach is that non-ASCII files (for example, Unicode,) appear to be binary. If that matters to you, you might go for a different heuristic, based on the percentage of characters below 0x20, for example.

--
Lee Holmes [MSFT]
Microsoft Command Shell Development
Microsoft Corporation
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, no confers rights.

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Hill
Posted At: Saturday, December 03, 2005 11:46 AM
Posted To: microsoft.public.windows.server.scripting
Conversation: MSH: Is File/Content Binary?
Subject: MSH: Is File/Content Binary?

Is there an easy way to determine this in MSH? Many times I want to string
search files but skip binary files.

--
Keith
.

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