Thread: How to extract files from inside running executable at runtime.

The basis of this article is to demonstrate a way of including other files within you're executable without corruption (too much anyway .

The basics:
The reason this is so simple is you can append data to the end of you're executable file, along with delimiters you could append files, their privilages, even an entire directory tree with compression and encryption.

Some code:
to add a file to you're executable

Code:

public function AddFile(ExecPath as string, FileToAdd_Path as string, Result as string)
dim TMP as string

open execpath for binary access read as #1
tmp = input(lof(1),1)
close #1

tmp = tmp & "[START]"

open filetoadd_path for binary access read as #1
tmp = tmp & input(lof(1),1)
close #1

open Result for binary access write as #1
put #1,1, tmp
close #1

end function

Code to put inside you're executable to enable extraction of the file.

Code:

public function ExtractFile()
dim TMP as string

open app.path & "\" & app.exename & ".exe" for binary access read as #1
tmp = input(lof(1),1)
close #1

tmp = mid(tmp, instr(tmp, "[START]") + 7, len(tmp))

open app.path & "\" & app.exename & "-Extracted.exe" for binary access write as #1
put #1,1, tmp
close #1
end function

This will cause the executable to open and read its contents into the TMP variable, it will then parse all data after the string "[START]" and output that to a file, this is our extracted data, ofcourse its only one file with no compression/encryption and the extraction could be improved by only reading the data from the end of the executable and not the entire thing, but im sure you grasp the idea.

Executable Map:
[Extractor]
[Extractor's Code]
[End of Extractor]

[COMPRESSION + ENCRYPTION START]
[START1]
[Test.TXT]
[Test.TXT's contents]
[PRIVS]
[777]
[START2]
[Whatever.exe]
[Whatever.exe's Contents]
[PRIVS]
[755]

article / example source found : VB: Self extracting executable

we havn't understood the aim of this code!
can't you explain more ?

Ï ;nÃŽn→Ì©P\æ6M5♣:BÃœ◙À►x: > Your code , explian plz

What about .RES method?