MacBinary Xtraction Component 1.0 - free

Last updated: 08/28/99 (1.0), Initial Release

File Uploading is a very common practice for ASP programmers now, as it is easy using components such as SA-FileUp or AspUpload (more can be found at AspIN). Everything works fine as long as you don't touch Microsoft's Internet Explorer for MacIntosh, because it behaves slightly different from your everyday browser: It uploads files using the MacBinary format, which besides a header contains the data fork and the resource fork.

The problem is that when you download the file again from the Web server, not even a MacIntosh client will be able to read the file - it is binary garbage unless you extract the data fork to a separate file. If you do that, then even a PC can read files (given that it is a format like JPEG that is the same on Mac and PC).

The MacBinary Xtraction Component takes care of extracting the data fork and writing it to a new file. We have written the component because - you guessed it - we stumbled into this roadblock recently. As we have spent hours of figuring out the problem, finding a solution and fixing it, we decided that you shouldn't go through this again and made the component available for free.

Code Samples

The code sample we provide contains functions you can use directly. It does not show how to upload a file using a specific component (you do that yourself). Please note that the code is written specifically for the upload scenario (the conversion is triggered only when a IE for Mac browser opens the page). View Code.

Download and Installation

Before using the component you have to register it using the regsvr32 utility:
   regsvr32 MacBinConv.dll.

Download (size is approx. 52KB)
The most current version number of the component is 1.0. It is compiled with Visual C++ 6.0 SP3 using ATL.

If you do have any questions, please feel free to send mail to Christoph Wille.