Could somebody verify this please.

[Ian Webling]

I've been fiddling with directly accessing dynamic strings. From
clues gleaned in POFFs and a few tests I've run I'm pretty sure
that they start on (at least) DWORD-aligned boundaries.
Granularity isn't important for what I have in mind but I it
appears to be a rather odd 24 bytes.

Can anybody confirm/deny this?

Thanks
-Ian

------------------

[Michael Mattias]

I've looked at this a couple of times, and I could never find any promises re where the data are located. I tend to 'obey' the rules ("use only the string manipulation functions...") anyway, so it really never mattered to me.

What is your goal here? You want to allocate some memory which is guaranteed to be DWORD-aligned? The HeapAlloc and VirtualAlloc functions provide this on a documented basis.

[Ian Webling]

Actually, my interest lies in the other end of the string - if I
can be sure that the next 1, 2 or 3 bytes after the end of the
string are unused (or mere padding) I can save some overhead on
unrolling a loop.

I recently found some code changing for a *very* fast Uppercase
function (including converting characters above ASCII 127). My
initial playing with it resulted in speeds about 2.3 times
faster than the intrinsic UCase$() function - and (you're going
to love this) that is just with the pure PB version (see below).

The assembler version runs ~4.5 times faster on short strings
(< ~256 bytes) and about 8.5 times faster on longer strings.

Here is the "pure" version:
(Adapted especially for MCM from code found on
http://www.azillionmonkeys.com/qed/asmexample.html

Function Upper(ByVal sStr As String) As String
	Dim i  As Local Long
	Dim iP As Local Long Ptr
  Dim iLen   As Local Long

  iLen = Len(sStr)
  iP = StrPtr(sStr) 
  For i = 1 To iLen Step 4
    @iP = @iP - ((((((@iP And &H7F7F7F7F) + &h05050505) And &H7F7F7F7F) + &h1a1a1a1a) \ 4) And &h20202020)
    iP = iP + 4
  Next
  Upper = sStr
End Function

------------------

[Michael Mattias]

> if I can be sure that the next 1, 2 or 3 bytes after the end of the string are unused (or mere padding)
> I can save some overhead on unrolling a loop.

Now that I know you may not assume. All you may assume is that the string data will have a (one) null character following it, a character not counted in the string length.

But that is not dependent on starting address, it's dependent on granularity.If you need reliable granularity you can measure, VirtualAlloc allocates only in multiples of the page size (getSystemInfo, dwPageSIze member of returned SYSTEM_INFO structure). For that matter, you can get close to knowing with heapAlloc by allocating one (1) byte and then interrogating the returned pointer with HeapSize() function.

But going back to address... I've never seen any data allocation on Win/32 which was NOT DWORD-aligned.

Of course, you could always modify your assembly-language function to do 4 byte blocks then handle any leftover bytes..

  L = LEN(String)
  WholeBlock = L \ 4
  OddBytes   = L MOD 4
  FOR Z = 1 to WholeBlock
     do four bytes at at time
  NEXT
  FOR Z =1 to OddNytes
     do a byte at a time
  NEXT

All in all, sure seems like a lot of effort to tell the PowerBASIC people their UCASE function is - in your opinion - no good.

Besides, if you function is using OLE strings anyway, you've already paid the vast majority of the overhead cost.


MCM

[Roy Cline]

I am getting old, however if I remember correctly loweer case
to caps just requires stripped the 8th bit off. That is
set bit eight to zero. No test, nothing just step and set.
Old tty days....

------------------
Roy Cline

[Roy Cline]

As for as alignment goes in strings, only the first byte is
aligned - the rest is in byte order. I would guess.

------------------
Roy Cline

[Michael Mattias]

In the regular US ASCII charset, cap/no cap is just bit 5 (or 6?) on (lowercase)/off(uppercase). But you have to test that your character is 'in range' of the letter to do that.

Don't know about 'extended' chars ( x'7F'< X < x'FF')

[Ian Webling]

> if I can be sure that the next 1, 2 or 3 bytes after the end of the string are unused (or mere padding)
> I can save some overhead on unrolling a loop.

Now that I know you may not assume. All you may assume is that the string data will have a (one) null character following it, a character not counted in the string length.

...

But going back to address... I've never seen any data allocation on Win/32 which was NOT DWORD-aligned.

The starting on a DWORD boundary is what is important to me here -
it means that a new string is not going to start in the 1, 2 or
3 bytes that can be left over between the end of a string and
the next DWORD boundary.

The bit of code I posted is already unrolling loop four times;
the "nice" thing about a positive answer to my question is that
it would then be unnecessary to write a special section to handle
any odd bytes at the end - they can be ignored (and the Null
remains Nil).

All in all, sure seems like a lot of effort to tell the PowerBASIC people their UCASE function is - in your opinion - no good.

I don't know how you arrive at that conclusion but from it it
seems the you think it is impossible to improve upon an existing
algorithm or implementation (even if for specific tasks) and, by
implication, no other code is possible to improve upon.

I, and many others here, are tinkerers who enjoy experimenting
- at no time time does this cause harm and occasionally it does
some good. If the Assembler version of the above can perform
the sane function as the intrinsic one 8 times faster I'm
sure I'll not be the only one to use.

Roy, a quick and dirty method is to toggle the sixth bit (2^5)
to flip case but that also modifies the 12 non-alphabetical
characters in the two 32 character ranges. The complete standard
ASCII character set only need 7 bits, what you may be remembering
tricks used to create markers in early DOS days (e.g. WordStar
would mark the beginning of each word by toggling it's 8th bit
high.

The separation of upper/lower by 32 has been carried over into
the &h80 to &hFF range. This is useful to know if you ever need
to create a character set with additional upper and lower case
letters and want word processors to be able to change case.



------------------

[Pierre Bellisle]

 Ian,
thank for sharing this code, it is really fascinating,
I did some testing, and, unfornunatly some international characters
refuse to cooperate, I think the routine will need a little tweak...
Note that I did also used the assembler version to confirm the results.

Pierre

See code below...

[This message has been edited by Pierre Bellisle (edited December 12, 2006).]

[Aleksandr Dobrev]

Russian chars à-224 ,û-251,ü-252,ý-253,þ-254,ÿ-255
is not uppercased

and one thing in asm-routine
you increment esi-pointer to string by one
but work with data as dword,
imho better change
inc esi
to
add esi,4

 sBuffer    = sBuff
 pBuffer    = STRPTR(sBuffer)
 pBufferEnd = pBuffer + LEN(sBuffer) - 1
 
 ! mov esi, pBuffer
 MoreDWORD:
 ! mov eax, [esi]
 
 ! mov  ebx, &h7f7f7f7f
 ! mov  edx, &h7f7f7f7f
 ! and  ebx, eax          '; 61-7a | 00-60,7b-7f
 ! mov  ecx, eax
 ! add  ebx, &h05050505   '; 66-7f | 05-65,80-84
 ! not  ecx               '; flip top bits
 ! and  ebx, edx          '; 66-7f | 00-65
 ! add  ebx, &h1a1a1a1a   '; 80-99 | 1a-7f
'! and  ebx, ecx          '; turn off top bit for non-ASCII
 ! shr  ebx, 2
 ! and  ebx, &h20202020   '; 20 | 00
 ! sub  eax, ebx
 
 ! mov [esi], eax
' ! inc esi  ;<------------------
 ! add esi,4 ;<--- speed*4  [img]http://www.powerbasic.com/support/forums/wink.gif[/img]
 ! cmp esi, pBufferEnd
 ! jb MoreDWORD

Nice code, thanks

------------------
-=Alex=-

[Michael Mattias]

The starting on a DWORD boundary is what is important to me here -
it means that a new string is not going to start in the 1, 2 or
3 bytes that can be left over between the end of a string and
the next DWORD boundary.

Ok, I see.

But that means granularity *is* important, too. Your code wants to assume it owns those odd bytes and may safely operate on them, even though your application is ignoring them.

That I think *is* safe. I cannot imagine that Win/32 would allocate memory in other than multiples of 32-bit words.

[Pierre Bellisle]

 Aleksandr, thank, you are right, code have been updated.
 -
 Now, for those who like fast algo,
here is an interesting test...
Note: Added a routine using xlatb...

Pierre

See code below...

[This message has been edited by Pierre Bellisle (edited December 12, 2006).]

[Arthur Gomide]

Originally posted by Pierre Bellisle:
Ian, ... to confirm the results.

My results with Brazilian Portuguese XP Pro SP2 and PB-Win 8.03
are here 1st and here 2nd.

Best regards,

------------------
Arthur Gomide
Como diria nosso profeta da bola, Dadá Maravilha: "Para toda Problemática existe uma Solucionática!"



[This message has been edited by Arthur Gomide (edited December 12, 2006).]

[Ian Webling]

But that means granularity *is* important, too. Your code wants to assume it owns those odd bytes and may safely operate on them, even though your application is ignoring them.

That I think *is* safe. I cannot imagine that Win/32 would allocate memory in other than multiples of 32-bit words.

My reasoning had been along these lines meaning I too could not
imagine a boundary less the 4 bytes (but then were are dealing
with MS) meaning that the granularity would be a multiple of 4
and, as I don't care if it is bigger than 4, it is not important
to me.

Pierre, Aleks: The original algorithm was meant for 7-bit ASCII
and even though it can be easly modified for 8 bits, there are
more than 26 letters with uppercase variants. These border on
the others so a bit of bit fiddling may be possible.

Pierre, on my machine (AMD64) the translate routine is actually
slower.

------------------

[Pierre Bellisle]

 Ian,
the asm algo I used is the second one on Paul's web page
it is meant, if I understand correctly,
to be able to convert the full range.

from Paul's web page...

<<The need to be able to support non-ASCII (i.e., include the range [80h, FFh])
has come up. One of the bonuses of being able to do the whole range is that ...>>

 -

As I see, if one want to convert characters only up to 127,
the asmUpper is by far the fastest (Some modification needed for full range).

On my computer, for full range,
the Translate routine is the fastest (until somebody provide a better one).

 -

To avoid code pollution I did mix my code above in only one piece...

Pierre

 
'Here are my results...
'Upper           : 0.186153826813184357
'asmUpper 0-127  : 0.006497194475834219
'CharUpper 0-127 : 0.089960036820322136
'Translate       : 0.026898949447485644
'UCASE$          : 0.081334359534521846
 
#COMPILE EXE '#Win 8.03#
#DIM ALL
#INCLUDE "WIN32API.INC" '#2005-01-27#
'______________________________________________________________________________
 
FUNCTION Translate(BYREF sBuff AS STRING) AS STRING
 LOCAL  sBuffer    AS STRING
 STATIC CharTable  AS STRING
 STATIC pCharTable AS DWORD
 LOCAL  pBuffer    AS DWORD
 LOCAL  LenBuffer  AS DWORD
 
 IF Len(CharTable) = 0 THEN
   CharTable = CHR$(0 TO 255)
   pCharTable = STRPTR(CharTable)
   CharUpper(BYVAL pCharTable + 1)
 END IF
 
 LenBuffer = LEN(sBuff)
 IF LenBuffer THEN
   sBuffer = sBuff
   pBuffer = STRPTR(sBuffer)
                                'Thank to Börje Hagsten 
   ! mov esi, pBuffer          ;'Pointer to string data
   ! mov ecx, LenBuffer        ;'Move length of string into ecx
   ! mov ebx, pCharTable       ;'Move pointer to translation table into ebx
     Accent_Loop:               'Loop label
   ! mov al, [esi]             ;'Move current character into al
   ! xlatb                     ;'Translate character
   ! mov [esi], al             ;'Move translated character back into string
   ! inc esi                   ;'Next character
   ! dec ecx                   ;'Decr counter
   ! jnz Accent_Loop           ;'Exit when ecx = 0
 
   FUNCTION = sBuffer
 END IF
 
END FUNCTION
'______________________________________________________________________________
 
FUNCTION Upper(BYREF sBuff AS STRING) AS STRING
 'Attention: This routine won't convert every characters above 127.
 LOCAL sBuffer AS STRING
 LOCAL pBuffer AS DWORD POINTER
 LOCAL Looper  AS LONG
 
 sBuffer = Sbuff
 pBuffer = STRPTR(sBuffer)
 FOR Looper = 1 TO LEN(sBuffer) STEP 4
   @pBuffer = @pBuffer - ((((((@pBuffer AND &H7F7F7F7F) + &h05050505) _
                               AND &H7F7F7F7F) + &h1a1a1a1a) \ 4) AND &h20202020)
   pBuffer = pBuffer + 4
 NEXT
 FUNCTION = sBuffer
 'Attention: This routine won't convert every characters above 127.
 
END FUNCTION
'______________________________________________________________________________
 
FUNCTION asmUpper(BYREF sBuff AS STRING) AS STRING
 'Attention: This routine won't convert every characters above 127.
 LOCAL sBuffer    AS STRING
 LOCAL pBuffer    AS DWORD
 LOCAL pBufferEnd AS DWORD
 LOCAL dw4Bytes   AS DWORD
 
 sBuffer    = sBuff
 pBuffer    = STRPTR(sBuffer)
 pBufferEnd = pBuffer + LEN(sBuffer) - 1
 
 ! mov esi, pBuffer
 MoreDWORD:
 ! mov eax, [esi]
 
 ! mov  ebx, &h7f7f7f7f
 ! mov  edx, &h7f7f7f7f
 ! and  ebx, eax          '; 61-7a | 00-60,7b-7f
 ! mov  ecx, eax                                             ';Remed for 7 bit version
 ! add  ebx, &h05050505   '; 66-7f | 05-65,80-84
 ! not  ecx               '; flip top bits                   ';Remed for 7 bit version
 ! and  ebx, edx          '; 66-7f | 00-65
 ! add  ebx, &h1a1a1a1a   '; 80-99 | 1a-7f
'! and  ebx, ecx          '; turn off top bit for non-ASCII  ';Remed always
 ! shr  ebx, 2
 ! and  ebx, &h20202020   '; 20 | 00
 ! sub  eax, ebx
  
 ! mov [esi], eax
 ! add esi, 4             ';Changed to "add esi, 4" instaed of "inc esi", thank Aleksandr...
 ! cmp esi, pBufferEnd
 ! jb MoreDWORD
 
 FUNCTION = sBuffer
 'Attention: This routine won't convert every characters above 127.
 
END FUNCTION
'______________________________________________________________________________
 
FUNCTION PBMAIN() AS LONG
 LOCAL Buffer        AS STRING
 LOCAL Buffer1       AS STRING
 LOCAL Buffer2       AS STRING
 LOCAL Buffer3       AS STRING
 LOCAL Buffer4       AS STRING
 LOCAL Message       AS STRING
 LOCAL PerfFrequency AS QUAD
 LOCAL PerfStart     AS QUAD
 LOCAL PerfEnd       AS QUAD
 LOCAL Looper        AS LONG
 LOCAL LoopEnd       AS LONG
 
 Buffer1 = CHR$(32 TO 63)   : CharUpper(BYVAL(STRPTR(Buffer1)))
 Buffer2 = CHR$(64 TO 127)  : CharUpper(BYVAL(STRPTR(Buffer2)))
 Buffer3 = CHR$(128 TO 191) : CharUpper(BYVAL(STRPTR(Buffer3)))
 Buffer4 = CHR$(192 TO 255) : CharUpper(BYVAL(STRPTR(Buffer4)))
 
 Buffer = CHR$(32 TO 63)                         & $TAB & "Source"    & $CRLF & _
          Upper(CHR$(32 TO 63))                  & $TAB & "Upper"     & $CRLF & _
          asmUpper(CHR$(32 TO 63))               & $TAB & "asmUpper"  & $CRLF & _
          Buffer1                                & $TAB & "CharUpper" & $CRLF & _
          Translate(CHR$(32 TO 63))              & $TAB & "Translate" & $CRLF & _
          UCASE$(CHR$(32 TO 63))                 & $TAB & "UCASE$"    & $CRLF & $CRLF & _
          _
          CHR$(64 TO 127)                        & $TAB & "Source"    & $CRLF & _
          Upper(CHR$(64 TO 127))                 & $TAB & "Upper"     & $CRLF & _
          asmUpper(CHR$(64 TO 127))              & $TAB & "asmUpper"  & $CRLF & _
          Buffer2                                & $TAB & "CharUpper" & $CRLF & _
          Translate(CHR$(64 TO 127))             & $TAB & "Translate" & $CRLF & _
          UCASE$(CHR$(64 TO 127))                & $TAB & "UCASE$"    & $CRLF & $CRLF & _
          _
          CHR$(128 TO 191)                       & $TAB & "Source"    & $CRLF & _
          Upper(CHR$(128 TO 191))                & $TAB & "Upper"     & $CRLF & _
          asmUpper(CHR$(128 TO 191))             & $TAB & "asmUpper"  & $CRLF & _
          Buffer3                                & $TAB & "CharUpper" & $CRLF & _
          Translate(CHR$(128 TO 191))            & $TAB & "Translate" & $CRLF & _
          UCASE$(CHR$(128 TO 191))               & $TAB & "UCASE$"    & $CRLF & $CRLF & _
          _
          CHR$(192 TO 255)                       & $TAB & "Source"    & $CRLF & _
          Upper(CHR$(192 TO 255))                & $TAB & "Upper"     & $CRLF & _
          asmUpper(CHR$(192 TO 255))             & $TAB & "asmUpper"  & $CRLF & _
          Buffer4                                & $TAB & "CharUpper" & $CRLF & _
          Translate(CHR$(192 TO 255))            & $TAB & "Translate" & $CRLF & _
          UCASE$(CHR$(192 TO 255))               & $TAB & "UCASE$"    & $CRLF & _
          $CRLF & "To handle International characters, UCASE$ must be from PowerBASIC 8.02 or newer"
 MessageBox %HWND_DESKTOP, BYCOPY Buffer, _
            "Upper and asmUpper won't convert some characters above 127 !", _
            %MB_ICONINFORMATION OR %MB_OK
 
 Buffer1 = CHR$(224) & CHR$(251 TO 253) & CHR$(255)
 CharUpper(BYVAL(STRPTR(Buffer1)))
 Buffer = CHR$(224) & CHR$(251 TO 253) & CHR$(255)           & $TAB & "Source"   & $CRLF & _
          Upper(CHR$(224) & CHR$(251 TO 253) & CHR$(255))    & $TAB & "Upper"    & $CRLF & _
          asmUpper(CHR$(224) & CHR$(251 TO 253) & CHR$(255)) & $TAB & "asmUpper" & $CRLF & _
          Buffer1                                            & $TAB & "CharUpper" & $CRLF & _
          Translate(CHR$(224) & CHR$(251 TO 253) & CHR$(255))& $TAB & "Translate" & $CRLF & _
          UCASE$(CHR$(224) & CHR$(251 TO 253) & CHR$(255))   & $TAB & "UCASE$"    & $CRLF & $CRLF & _
          "Upper and asmUpper won't convert those characters !"                   & $CRLF & _
          $CRLF & "Need UCASE$ from PowerBASIC 8.02 or newer"
 MessageBox %HWND_DESKTOP, BYCOPY Buffer, "Those won't convert", %MB_ICONEXCLAMATION OR %MB_OK
 
 
 'Test speed ------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 Buffer1 = REPEAT$(10, CHR$(1 TO 255))
 LoopEnd = 2000
 QueryPerformanceFrequency PerfFrequency
 
 'Upper - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 QueryPerformanceCounter PerfStart
 FOR Looper = 1 TO LoopEnd
   Buffer2 = Upper(Buffer1)
 NEXT
 QueryPerformanceCounter PerfEnd
 Message = Message & "Upper : " & $TAB & $TAB & FORMAT$(((PerfEnd - PerfStart) / _
                     PerfFrequency), "#,.000000000000000000") & $CRLF
 
 'asmUpper - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 QueryPerformanceCounter PerfStart
 FOR Looper = 1 TO LoopEnd
   Buffer2 = asmUpper(Buffer1)
 NEXT
 QueryPerformanceCounter PerfEnd
 Message = Message & "asmUpper 0-127 : " & $TAB & FORMAT$(((PerfEnd - PerfStart) / _
                     PerfFrequency), "#,.000000000000000000") & $CRLF
 
 'CharUpper - - - - - - - - - - -
 QueryPerformanceCounter PerfStart
 FOR Looper = 1 TO LoopEnd
   Buffer2 = Buffer1
   CharUpper(BYVAL(STRPTR(Buffer2)))
 NEXT
 QueryPerformanceCounter PerfEnd
 Message = Message & "CharUpper 0-127 : " & $TAB & FORMAT$(((PerfEnd - PerfStart) / _
                     PerfFrequency), "#,.000000000000000000") & $CRLF
 
 'Translate - - - - - - - - - - -
 QueryPerformanceCounter PerfStart
 FOR Looper = 1 TO LoopEnd
   Buffer2 = Translate(Buffer1)
 NEXT
 QueryPerformanceCounter PerfEnd
 Message = Message & "Translate : " & $TAB & FORMAT$(((PerfEnd - PerfStart) / _
                     PerfFrequency), "#,.000000000000000000") & $CRLF
 
 'UCASE$ - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 QueryPerformanceCounter PerfStart
 FOR Looper = 1 TO LoopEnd
   Buffer2 = UCASE$(Buffer1)
 NEXT
 QueryPerformanceCounter PerfEnd
 Message = Message & "UCASE$ : " & $TAB & FORMAT$(((PerfEnd - PerfStart) / _
                     PerfFrequency), "#,.000000000000000000") & $CRLF
 
 'Result - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 MessageBox %HWND_DESKTOP, BYCOPY Message, "Uppercase speed", %MB_ICONINFORMATION OR %MB_OK
 
 
END FUNCTION
'______________________________________________________________________________

[This message has been edited by Pierre Bellisle (edited December 12, 2006).]

[Arthur Gomide]

Originally posted by Ian Webling:
... meaning that the granularity would be a multiple of 4 and, as I don't care if it is bigger than 4, it is not important to me.

Ian,

AFAIK the boundary is always 4 bytes - look this!

#COMPILE EXE
#DIM ALL

FUNCTION PBMAIN () AS LONG
    LOCAL text1,text2,text3,text4 AS STRING
    LOCAL str1,str2,str3,str4,str5,str6,str7,str8,str9,msg AS STRING
    LOCAL ini1,ini2,ini3,ini4,ini5,ini6,ini7,ini8,ini9 AS LONG
    
    str1 = STRING$(1,32)
    str2 = STRING$(2,32)
    str3 = STRING$(7,32)
    str4 = STRING$(9,32)
    str5 = STRING$(255,32)
    str6 = STRING$(333,32)
    str7 = STRING$(1025,32)
    str8 = STRING$(32769,32)
    str9 = CHR$(32)
    
    ini1 = STRPTR(str1)
    ini2 = STRPTR(str2)
    ini3 = STRPTR(str3)
    ini4 = STRPTR(str4)
    ini5 = STRPTR(str5)
    ini6 = STRPTR(str6)
    ini7 = STRPTR(str7)
    ini8 = STRPTR(str8)
    ini9 = STRPTR(str9)
    
    text1 = "Lenght / Start of STR"
    text2 = "  Distance STR"
    text3 = " to STR"
    text4 = "  Boundary:"

    msg =       text1+"1: "+STR$(LEN(str1))+" / "+HEX$(ini1,8)+text2+"1"+text3+"2:"+STR$(ini2-ini1)+text4+STR$(ini1 MOD 4)+$CRLF
    msg = msg + text1+"2: "+STR$(LEN(str2))+" / "+HEX$(ini2,8)+text2+"2"+text3+"3:"+STR$(ini3-ini2)+text4+STR$(ini2 MOD 4)+$CRLF
    msg = msg + text1+"3: "+STR$(LEN(str3))+" / "+HEX$(ini3,8)+text2+"3"+text3+"4:"+STR$(ini4-ini3)+text4+STR$(ini3 MOD 4)+$CRLF
    msg = msg + text1+"4: "+STR$(LEN(str4))+" / "+HEX$(ini4,8)+text2+"4"+text3+"5:"+STR$(ini5-ini4)+text4+STR$(ini4 MOD 4)+$CRLF
    msg = msg + text1+"5: "+STR$(LEN(str5))+" / "+HEX$(ini5,8)+text2+"5"+text3+"6:"+STR$(ini6-ini5)+text4+STR$(ini5 MOD 4)+$CRLF
    msg = msg + text1+"6: "+STR$(LEN(str6))+" / "+HEX$(ini6,8)+text2+"6"+text3+"7:"+STR$(ini7-ini6)+text4+STR$(ini6 MOD 4)+$CRLF
    msg = msg + text1+"7: "+STR$(LEN(str7))+" / "+HEX$(ini7,8)+text2+"7"+text3+"8:"+STR$(ini8-ini7)+text4+STR$(ini7 MOD 4)+$CRLF
    msg = msg + text1+"8: "+STR$(LEN(str8))+" / "+HEX$(ini8,8)+text2+"8"+text3+"9:"+STR$(ini9-ini8)+text4+STR$(ini8 MOD 4)+$CRLF
    msg = msg + text1+"9: "+STR$(LEN(str9))+" / "+HEX$(ini9,8)

    MSGBOX msg

END FUNCTION

------------------
Arthur Gomide
Como diria nosso profeta da bola, Dadá Maravilha: "Para toda Problemática existe uma Solucionática!"

[This message has been edited by Arthur Gomide (edited December 12, 2006).]

[Ian Webling]

Pierre,

it is meant, if I understand correctly,
to be able to convert the full range.

You understand correctly but the code doesn't

I think the author assumed that there would be another 26
characters starting at [Char] + 128. See the line below.

! add ebx, &h1a1a1a1a

Unfortunately there are 31 characters with upper/lower pairs so
only the 26 in the range 'a' + 128 to 'z' + 128 are converted.

As you say - it is very fast for 7-bit ASCII and I'll definitely
use it for that.




------------------