Function I2bin() | Xbase++ | Alaska Software

Converts a numeric value to 16 bit integer.

I2bin( <nInteger> ) --> cBinary

<nInteger> is a numeric expression whose value is converted into binary format. When the value is not an integer, the decimal places are truncated.

The return value of I2bin() is a character string of two characters containing the numeric value as a 16 bit integer.

I2bin() converts numeric values in the range of -32768 to +32767 to their binary representation. The function returns a character string of two characters, where the first character represents the lower value byte. I2bin() ignores decimal places and converts only the integer portion of a number. The counterpart of I2bin() is Bin2i().

I2Bin() is frequently used in connection with the low level file functions. This is sometimes done to allow definition of a special or unique file formats, or to provide a data compression technique for integer values.

Data compression with I2bin()

// The example demonstrates a simple process of 
// data compression for numeric values whose value range 
// is known. 

PROCEDURE Main 
   LOCAL i, cNumeric:="", cCompressed := "" 

   FOR i:=1 TO 10000 
      cNumeric    += Str( i , 5 ) 
      cCompressed += I2bin( i ) 
   NEXT 

   ? Len( cNumeric )           // result: 50000 
   ? Len( cCompressed )        // result: 20000 

RETURN

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Function I2bin() Foundation