Scripting a text to binary digits converter

[Ken Ray]

> function convertTextToBinary varText
>   --repeat with n = 1 to the number of chars of varText
>   repeat for each char tChar in varText
>      --put chartonum(char n of varText) into theNum
>      put chartonum(tChar) into theNum
>      put baseConvert(theNum,10,2) into tBaseConverted
>      put char -8 to -1 of ("00000000" & tBaseConverted ) into tBaseConverted
>      put tBaseConverted after tConverted
>   end repeat
>   return tConverted
> end convertTextToBinary

Another thing you could do which *might* speed things up is to use numberFormat instead of parsing strings:

function convertTextToBinary varText
  set the numberFormat to "00000000"
  --repeat with n = 1 to the number of chars of varText
  repeat for each char tChar in varText
     --put chartonum(char n of varText) into theNum
     put chartonum(tChar) into theNum
     put (baseConvert(theNum,10,2)+0) into tBaseConverted  -- the "+0" forces it to use the number format
     put tBaseConverted after tConverted
  end repeat
  return tConverted
end convertTextToBinary

You can also collapse a lot of the code (although it's less readable):

function convertTextToBinary varText
  set the numberFormat to "00000000"
  repeat for each char tChar in varText
     put (baseConvert(chartonum(tChar),10,2)+0) after tConverted
  end repeat
  return tConverted
end convertTextToBinary

Stripping a few lines may also increase speed - don't know but just a thought...

Ken Ray
Sons of Thunder Software, Inc.
Email: kray at sonsothunder.com
Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/