reading PDF files

MacschedStudent · Post by **MacschedStudent** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 7:08 pm

Hi guys:

I am currently using MSched 7.4.009 20/10/2005

If I use the RLN command or ReadFile and attempt to open and read a PDF file and display the contents in a message what I get is the format of the file but none of the data - meaning an empty PDF file. So the logic that follows fails when attempting to work with the file contents. However, if I take that same file and manually rename the extension to .txt and open it all of the data is there.

So just to make sure were clear, if I RLN 10 on the PDF I get something like "n00000006" which is basically an empty line in PDF. But if I change that file to a txt extension and then use RLN to read that same file I get a full line of text. Is this a limitation with MSChed ???

Me_again · Post by **Me_again** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 9:23 pm

With the file I tried I don't see any difference in the result with renaming the file from .pdf to .txt. Since Help for ReadLn says "Reads the specified line from the given text file." I guess I wouldn't expect it to work with a .pdf because that's not a plain text file type.

JRL · Post by **JRL** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 12:20 am

I haven't tried this because I no longer have access to version 7.

A specific application accessing a file may read the file's name and treat the file in a manner specific to the file's 3 character extension. Otherwise, nothing about reading a file is changed when a file is renamed. Renaming a file does nothing to alter the actual contents of the file.

File extension association to a specific application is based on information stored in the Windows Registry and has absolutely nothing to do with the contents of the file. I would be surprised to hear that the Readln> function has at any time been associated in any way with a particular file extension and would therefore be susceptible to altering its behavior based on a file's name.

I can tell you that PDF files can contain ASCII control characters that will not be displayed in a Macro Scheduler message. I can also tell you that I'm 99% certain that changing a files name from .PDF to .TXT will not change what gets read by ReadLn> and displayed in a message. Something else had to be changed for your results to be different. Different file or different line number... something.

Post by **Marcus Tettmar** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 12:26 am

Yes, as JRL says, the file extension has no bearing on the contents of the file and changing it will make absolutely no iota of a difference to the content. You could rename a .pdf file to a .txt, or .who, or .whatever file and you would still get exactly the same data when reading it with ReadLn.

MacschedStudent · Post by **MacschedStudent** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 7:41 am

Hi guys thanks for the in-depth and prompt reply. I see no value in chasing down a problem that may not be able to be replicated with the newer version of MSched. I will redo my testing and if the results are the same I will forward you the PDF and the click-per-click steps I took to arrive at the anomaly - thanks.