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Binding A Resource File Without Relinking the exe

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 9:45 am
by PatrickWeisser
Hello everyone. We have another company localize our resource (.rc) files, and they have a need to bind various revisions to our exe without having our source code, or even the objs. From the Borland documentation I would think that:

c:\borland\bcc55\bin\brc32 AppName.rc AppName.exe

would compile the .rc to .res, and bind the .res with the .exe. However, while the .res is produced, it is not bound to the .exe (the .exe is not updated at all). I took care to leave off the -r switch which is supposed to prevent binding of the .res to the .exe. I know binding a .res to an .exe was possible with the 16-bit Borland brc.exe utility. Does anyone know how to do it with the 32-bit Borland utilities, or what might be wrong with my syntax?

Thanks!

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 10:09 am
by Antonio Linares
Patrick,

You could deliver the resources as a DLL to be used from the EXE. FWH allows that, so you just send them the DLL, they replace the DLL and the application will be updated.

Anyhow we are going to review the brc32 flags

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 10:35 am
by Antonio Linares
Patrick,

We have tried:

brc32 -fetest.exe test.rc

but it does not update test.exe (it should)

so you may better go the DLL way

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 10:37 am
by Antonio Linares
Patrick,

To build a DLL 32 bits from a RC please review:

fwh\DLL\rc2dll32.bat

From your application simply do a:

SET RESOURCES TO "YourDLL.DLL"

and FWH will search and use the resources from such DLL

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 1:17 pm
by James Bott
Patrick,

If I understand you right, you are sending them an EXE that already has resouces bound to it? If so, why not send them one that doesn't?

James

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 7:50 pm
by PatrickWeisser
Thanks Antonio, I will give the DLL approach a try, though I do prefer the way we have been doing it with a fully self-contained exe with no external code dependencies in which you have to worry that DLL's are all current when a user calls in with dialog anomalies. I've spent the past few hours doing Google searches for brc32 and reading a lot, and from what I can see this a well known bug with brc32. I know it's free software so we can't complain too much, but you would think Borland would have fixed it by now (it's been a problem for years). Is there an alternative to brc32 we could use? Surely resource compiling and binding can't be that obscure a task -- there must be many similar utilities.

James - thanks for your suggestion but whether or not we give our localization office an exe with a bound resource is not the issue. The bug in brc32 prevents them from binding their alternative resource files. They would have to use ilink32 and have our link file and obj's at the very least.

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 8:26 pm
by Antonio Linares
Patrick,

You may try Microsoft resources compiler instead of Borland's one. Its free, so if you don't locate it just say it, and we will email it to you :-)

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 5:16 pm
by carlos vargas
please traslate this

Quizas mi idea te sirva.
Existe una herramienta que es capaz de reemplazar recursos de un exe ya establecido, esta herramienta viene con algunos paquetes que hace un mod a windows xp, que se llama resource hack.

por ejemplo los mod de crystal lo utilizan para cambiar iconos, bitmap, dialogos, me inmagino que strings tambien, en estos mod _ los hace por comando no via gui segun he logrado ver.

http://delphi.icm.edu.pl/ftp/tools/ResHack.zip

salu2
carlos vargas

Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 6:11 pm
by Antonio Linares
Patrick,

It looks as you have set an autoresponder on your email account.

Please email us when you turn it off, thanks