Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!rambaut
From: rambaut@castle.ed.ac.uk (A E Rambaut)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: putting bitmaps in .exe file
Message-ID: <8868@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 6 Mar 91 12:26:22 GMT
References: <2859@beguine.UUCP>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Lines: 40

Dan.Bjorklund@samba.acs.unc.edu (Dan Bjorklund) writes:


> I'm looking for a way to put a series of bitmaps that my Turbo program uses in the .exe file 
>so that the program doesn't need to have lots of external files. Is there
>an easy way to do this?

>Dan.Bjorklund@bbs.acs.unc.edu

If you have the bitmaps on disk, you should first go into DOS and use
binobj.exe (included with TP) to create an object file. So if you have a
bitmap called icon1.bit you would type:
	BINOBJ icon1.bit icon1.obj icon1
This would produce a file called icon1.obj with a symbol name of icon1
(this is used to reference it in TP). 
Now back in TP you would add a new procedure to the main body of the
program/unit :

PROCEDURE Icon1; EXTERNAL;
{$L ICON1.OBJ}

This produces a dummy procedure and links your icon1.obj file which has
the same symbol name. Finally in the procedure that you wish to use the bitmap you do
something like the following:

Procedure DrawIcon(x,y:integer);
var
  P:pointer;
begin
  P:=@Icon1;
  putimage(P^,x,y,normalput); {hope this is right - I can't remember the
                               exact format}
end;

The P:=@Icon1 make the pointer point to the procedure icon1 which is not
really a procedure at all but your bitmap masquerading as one. I have a
suspicion that I saw this method used in the Tp manuals but I can't be sure.

Hope this helps.
Andrew.