Bin2Inc

A Delphi binary file to .inc file tool with full source code.

This tool takes as input any file, reads it binary and creates a include file with constants arrays containing the file contents.

Creating a .inc file

Simply run the bin2inc tool from command line and specify the parameters you want to personalizze your output file.

Switch	Default	Mandatory	Multiple	Description
-a:#	auto	❌	❌	Specifies the desired array alignment. # can be one of the values: 1 for byte alignment, 2 for word, 3 for cardinal, 4 for unsigned 64-bit integer. If a file cannot be aligned by specified alignment, automatic alignment will be used.
-c:##	8	❌	❌	Speficies the number of columns/values to use for line while describing arrays.
-f	❌	❌	❌	Indicates to create constant reference structure to arrays at the end of include file.
-l	❌	❌	❌	Specifies that hexadecimal values should be outputed as lowercase instead of uppercase.
-r	❌	❌	❌	Specifies that files should be searched recursively in sub-folders.
-y	❌	❌	❌	Specifies to automatically overwrite existing output file.
-i:mask	❌	✅	✅	Specifies a mask (also using wildcards) for searching input files to be included.
-o:file	"file.inc"	❌	❌	Specifies the include output filename.
-s:##	2	❌	❌	Specifies that indentation should be made with the specified number of spaces.
-t	❌	❌	❌	Specifies that indentation should be made with a tabulation character.

Including a constant in the code

You can include a .inc file almost anywhere in a .pas file putting a $I compiler directive as long as the code doesn't break, for example you could include it under your interface or implementation section like this.

...
implementation

uses
  SysUtils;

{$I 'bin\test.inc'}
...

Or also, include this inside a function like this.

...
procedure GenerateOutputFile;
{$I 'bin\test.inc'}
var
  I: Integer;
  S: String;
begin
...

Using a .inc constant

You can access the constant as you wish, but you can move it back to a memory stream for example in this way:

var MStream := TMemoryStream.Create;
MStream.Write(BIN_FILE_BIN[0], SizeOf(BIN_FILE_BIN));

Run the test

Firstly build (but don't run) Bin2Inc.dpr "bin" folder, then execute:

bin2inc -i:commedia.txt -o:test.inc -y

Now, build IncTest.dpr in the "bin" folder too and just run it from the folder, it will compare content of original file with that in the include file.

Version history

Version	Release date	Description
1.0	2002	First version created in early '00s, released Sep 24, 2023 on GitHub.
1.1	2023-09-27	Fixed an old slow implementation and corrected small things.
1.1	2023-10-20	Added a sample project showing how to use this.
1.2	2023-10-28	Added the -f option.