Binds the SFRecord object to a stream (or file). Binding occurs through the default filter or through an external filter (if specified).

Syntax:

recordobject.BindTo strm [, filter]

Parameters:

recordobject - an initialized SFRecord object. There is no sense to invoke BindTo without some Fields added to the record.

strm - An object representing a stream. Can be any SFStream object or object that supports the standard COM interface - IStream. SFRecord will automatically try all the possible ways to access the srtream.

Examples:

Set main = Server.CreateObject("newObejcts.utilctls.SFMain")
Set file = main.OpenFile("somefile.bin")
Set rec = Server.CreateObject("newObejcts.utilctls.SFRecord")
rec.AddField "A", vbString, 20
rec.AddField "B", vbLong
rec.AddField "C", vbDouble
rec.BindTo file 

Remarks:

Binding operation creates or/and attaches a filter to the record. Then the filter is called to calculate the actual size of one record - as the record will be represented in the file/stream. This prepares the record for Move, Read and Write operations - i.e. after the binding the size of the record is known.

The filter role is to encode/decode the data to/from the stream. For example you may want to save the strings as ANSI using certain code page - the filter does this for you. Therefore without the filter the size of the record cannot be determined because there is no information how the data will be saved/read. To simplify the usage of the object we implemented default filter behavior - in other words the default filter is created if none is specified.

If any settings of the record or the filter are changed the ReBind method must be called in order to calculate the correct size of the record.

Note that the binding occurs to the "raw" streams. In other words the SFRecord-SFFilter pair works over the IStream interface. This allows usage of external components which support the standard IStream interface with the SFRecord object not packing them with SFStream object first.

If you need to access a stream with combined structure (e.g. some parts are clear text for example, other parts are binary records) you will need to access the stream through SFStream and SFRecord object at the same time. We recommend you to first create the SFStream object and bind the SFRecord to it. Because the SFRecord object relies on the stream position kept in the stream itself the navigation done through SFStream will affect the current position for the SFRecord and you will be able to read/write the "plain" parts of the file, then position the SFStream over the first byte of the "record" part of the stream and continue with the SFRecord. In case of read operations you will need to call ReRead to synch the data in the record after the re-positioning operation.

Applies to: SFRecord object

See also: ReBind

Supported on:

Windows 95/NT and later
Windows CE 3.0 and later
Pocket PC/Windows Mobile 2003 and later
Windows CE.NET 4 and later