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SLX and the BLOB
Posted: 14 Oct 06 6:02 PM
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fiogf49gjkf0d Greetings,
I am aware of at least three tools to decode and document SLX BLOB, ExecuteSQL (In the Administrator), Database Documentor (QGate) and Electrician (JH3). However, I am an "under-the-hood" type of person and I REALLY want to know how these products "Decrypt" the BLOB's. I can parse most of them, but it is an incomplete picture. So, is there anyone out there willing to share?
Thanks,
Steve Meyers |
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Re: SLX and the BLOB
Posted: 15 Oct 06 9:22 PM
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fiogf49gjkf0d Steve,
To be honest.. no.. not in a public forum and probably not for free.
As one who has "decoded" the blobs (like JH3 - John and others), we use that knowledge to develop tools that we sell. It's just that simple. It took many.. many hours to uncover a lot of the internals and that knowledge is worth a bunch of bucks. As a BP I know you can certainly appreciate that.
Also AFAIK distribution of that knowledge would be against SalesLogix Licenses and (Partner) agreements.
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rjl |
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Re: SLX and the BLOB
Posted: 16 Oct 06 2:58 AM
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fiogf49gjkf0d Hi RJ,
Aren't these fields’ standard SQL data fields that contain binary data that you can stream out in the same way you access an image from a database.
The process of extracting this data isn't SLX specific or are you talking about what you do with that data once you have read it?
Thanks
Duncan |
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Re: SLX and the BLOB
Posted: 16 Oct 06 9:14 AM
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fiogf49gjkf0d RJ,
That is the response I expected, but it never hurts to ask. I guess I will hack at it 
Steve |
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Re: SLX and the BLOB
Posted: 16 Oct 06 11:34 AM
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fiogf49gjkf0d I'd have to disagree. I've never seen any BP agreement that would be in violation by sharing *any* knowledge gained about SLX.
As far as sharing the info, that's what this site is all about . |
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Re: SLX and the BLOB
Posted: 16 Oct 06 12:18 PM
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fiogf49gjkf0d Hi Steve,
Each BLOB is different. Basically, the BLOBs in SLX are serialized Delphi classes. So, the serialized class for one BLOB would be different than a serialized BLOB for some other type.
The only one I've ever taken the time with is the Report plugin BLOB. The BLOB data for Report plugins appear to be a serialized class called "TCRWReportWrapper", which inherits from the Delphi TComponent, with the actual report file appended to the end. A serialized component will end with two conscutive null chars (the serialized component will not have two consecutive null chars internally). So, you could just read the BLOB look for the two consecutive null chars and then everything following write out to a file with an RPT extension and you'd have the report file. If you wanted to, you could also parse out details from the serialized object before the two consecutive null chars as well. Delphi's component streaming can get complicated and each BLOB type can be different to some extent and some of the binary representation of the serialized objects can be incomprehensible at times. But patience and you'll likely be able to figure out any of the ones you really need 
The process is fairly simple to figure out the different BLOB types, although very tedious and can take some time. Start by writing the BLOB data out to a file and then use a good text editor (ie: something like TextPad, UltraEdit, etc - *not* something like Notepad) to start looking for patterns in the characters in the file to find the data you want. Then in code look for those patters to parse out the values.
Make sense? |
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Re: SLX and the BLOB
Posted: 16 Oct 06 12:21 PM
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fiogf49gjkf0d BTW, I do have some C# code that extracts the report file out of the BLOB, and have written the same code in VBScript as well (which might take some additional time to locate since it is not something I've likely used since I originally wrote it a long time ago). I could post that if it would help.
-Ryan |
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Re: SLX and the BLOB
Posted: 16 Oct 06 1:23 PM
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fiogf49gjkf0d The C# code alone would make a great article and VBScript included would be pretty sweet. |
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Re: SLX and the BLOB
Posted: 17 Oct 06 3:03 AM
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fiogf49gjkf0d I have to agree with Ryan, the whole point of this site is to make it easy for people to use and develop in SalesLogix.
I've also extracted the blob data from the plug-in table to interrogate groups - this part is easy, however slicing the data to do something with it is more complex
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Duncan
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