Re: slightly OT : arbitrary data conversion

[Shai Ayal]

well, trying to answer an arbitrary question is highly non-trivial :)

1. Say you could run it under wine, how would this help you anyway? You 
say the program itself does not convert to ascii.

2. I would try to reverse engineer it. It might be highly complex (say 
like the word DOC file format), but most file formats, especially from 
small software tend to be rather simple -- I would try to skip any 
obvious header and than load it into ints or floats or doubles and see 
if it makes sense. Have a look at the octave fread command -- it is 
quite useful for these kind of things.

I hope this answer is better than arbitrary,
Shai

Bryan W. Lepore wrote:
> sorry for the OT question, but how would i go about converting an
> arbitrary windows data file that some program generates to plain-text?
>
> (more detail below):
>
> the program on windows does not convert to ascii.  getting the program to
> run in wine will not be trivial, if at all possible.  only one part of the
> output from `strings` or `file` starts making sense - points to a dll, but
> short of mirroring the windows installation, it leads no where.
>
> sooo... my best guess is try to get it to run in wine.  any other ideas
> appreciated.
>
> -bryan
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--
Shai Ayal, Ph.D.
Director of Development
BioControl Medical BCM
Tel:  + 972 3 6322 126 ext 223
Fax:  + 972 3 6322 125
email: address@hidden