Ola pessoal;
Amigo tb tava interessado nesta ideia...e depois de procurar um monte
olhe ai em baixo
Title Creating a Compressed, Self-Extracting Installation File
Author Andre v.d. Merwe [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Published March 1998 - Pinnacle Delphi Developer
Copyright Reprinted with permission from Pinnacle Publishing,
Inc. http://www.pinpub.com/
Downloads
* Delphi
<http://users.iafrica.com/d/da/dart/zen/Articles/SelfExtract/Source.zip>
Source Code (17.2kb)
* Compiled
<http://users.iafrica.com/d/da/dart/zen/Articles/SelfExtract/Binaries.zi
p> Binaries (195kb)
Back to the Zen Home Page
<http://users.iafrica.com/d/da/dart/zen/zen.html>
_____
Intro:
In this article I will show you how you can create your own self
extractor. This article deals specifically with a self extractor for use
in an instillation package. Once you have seen how to write a
self-extractor you can write your own self extractor to do whatever it
is that you need.
This article explains the various components of a self extractor, these
are
* The extractor.
* Marker / magic number.
* Data consisting of the files to be extracted.
* Message to prompt the user with.
* A setup.exe application that does the actual setup.
* Application to create the self extracting application. (The self
extract "maker")
Some terminology
Self extracting exe
Finished exe, contains both the extractor and data to be extracted. This
is the file that is distributed.
Extractor / self extractor
Code that is used to extract the files appended to its exe.
Maker / SE Maker
Application that creates the self extracting exe
The first thing that you need to be aware of is that you can append data
to a windows exe (executable) without affecting the exe in anyway. You
can also open an running exe for read only access. These two facts are
what make writing a self extractor possible.
What happens is that the SE (self extract) maker, takes the files to be
included, compresses them adds some additional information. The
resulting data is appended to the extractor. When the extractor is run
it scans for appended data, if this data is found the files are
extracted and setup.exe is executed.
As you will shortly see a self extractor makes quite a bit of use of
offsets and lengths in the data. A good hex editor is indispensable as
you will be able to manually check that the format of the self
extracting exe is valid. There a a number of great hex editors on the
net, look at the usual software sites.
Self Extracting Exe - Overview:
The self extracting exe is made up of
1. Extractor
2. Appended data block
3. Message for user
4. Magic number used to indicate a valid se file
When run it..
1. Checks for magic number
2. Extracts files to a temporary directory.
3. Runs setup.exe and waits for it to terminate
4. Deletes all files created during extracting.
SE Maker - Overview:
The SE maker must
1. Compress the files
2. Create a data block
3. Append data block to the extractor
4. Append magic number to exe
Data Block Overview:
The compression method used is of little importance. What is important
is that the self extractor can extract all files from the data block
appended to it. For this reason each files size and name must be saved
along with the file in the data block.
There are many different formats for a data block of this nature. Here
is the format that I have chosen.
<http://users.iafrica.com/d/da/dart/zen/Articles/SelfExtract/Image4.gif>
Figure 1 Format of the self extracting exe.
Final SE File (self extracting exe)
SE Code
Extractor
Sections
Length of sections
Message
Used as a prompt
Length of message
Magic number
Indicates that data has been appended
Sections
Number of Sections
Extractor
Section 1
.
.
.
Section n
Used as a prompt
Section (one for each file)
Length of section
Does not include name or length of name
Length of file name
Name
Name of file to extract the data to
Compressed file data
Lengths and Offsets:
As you can see there are a number of 'blocks' in Figure 1. Each block
has an associated length, for example the file name is preceded by the
name's length. You could also have a table of offsets into the file,
this kind of table would act as a rudimentary FAT (file allocation
table). However I feel that this just adds unnecessary complexity for
something so simple. You decide..
You may notice that some lengths are saved before the associated block
(eg length of file name) and some are saved after (eg length of
message). Each length value is located so as to make parsing the data
easier. For instance if the message length was saved before the message
it would be necessary to scan through the message and have some way of
telling where the message starts and then read the length value. This
concept will become clear as you see how the data block parsing works.
Extracted Files:
As previously mentioned this article explains a self extractor for
software instillation. So when files are extracted they should be stored
in a temporary location, and deleted as soon as they are no longer
needed. The extractor included in this months subscriber download,
extracts the files to a temporary directory in the windows temporary
directory. Once the setup is completed the directory and all files and
directories that it contains are deleted. This ensures that there are no
files / directories left unnecessarily on the users machine.
The SE Maker:
Figure2 is a picture of a SE maker. This application takes a number of
files, a prompt and the extractor and creates the final self extracting
exe.
<http://users.iafrica.com/d/da/dart/zen/Articles/SelfExtract/Image5.gif>
Figure 2 Sceen shot of a SE Maker
These tasks can be divided into 4 groups
1. Write extractor
2. Write sections, one section per file
3. Write user message (prompt)
4. Write the magic number
SE Maker - Write Extractor
The extractor must be copied and written to a new file. This new file is
the beginning of what is to become the final self extracting exe.
Delphi's TFileStream greatly simplifies using files, performing complex
file operations is made easy. MemoryStreams do the same for dynamically
allocated memory.
Start the self extracting exe by creating a FileStream for it.
OutFile := TFileStream.Create( 'OutFile.exe',
fmOpenReadWrite or fmCreate
);
This creates a new file and opens it in read/write mode. OutFile remains
open throughout the 4 stages of creating the self extracting exe.
Step 1 requires that the extractor be copied to the beginning of the
self extracting file. See figure 1 to confirm this. Copying from one
FileStream to another is very easy,
Extractor := TFileStream.Create( '..\Extractor\Extractor.exe',
fmOpenRead
);
OutFile.CopyFrom( Extractor, Extractor.size );
Extractor.Free;
SE Maker - Writing Sections
Refer to figure 2, the extractor has just been written so now the number
of sections must be written to the output file, ie at no 2 of Figure 2.
Writing an integer value to a stream is accomplished with a bit of type
casting
OutFile.Write( pointer(@iNumSetions)^, sizeof( integer ) );
This gets the address of the integer to write, treats it as an untyped
pointer and passes the dereferanced value to TFileStream.Write. This
method is very handy and easy enough to understand, you'll see it quite
a bit throughout this article.
The SE maker is now at number 3 of Figure 1, and must therefore write
the length of this section to OutFile. The problem is that the length of
the section is not yet known, as the file has not yet been compressed.
So compress the file before continuing.
Once again, the compression method used is of no concern, you need not
even use compression if you don't want to. The example defines a simple
compression interface (SECompress.pas) with two member functions -
Compress and DeCompress. You can change the compression method by
changing the SECompress unit. No other changes to the SE Maker, or
extractor will be necessary.
To make things easier the SECompress unit uses TMemoryStreams for
compression and decompression. One for the input data and one for the
output data.
Create the memory streams and load the data
mstrmData := TMemoryStream.Create;
mstrmInFile := TMemoryStream.Create;
mstrmInFile.LoadFromFile( sCurrentFileName );
Where sCurrent file is a string containing the name and path of the file
currently being processed.
Next compress the loaded data
Compress := TSECompress.Create;
Compress.Compress( mstrmInFile, mstrmData );
Compress.Free;
mstrmInFile.Free;
TSECompress is defined in the SECompress.pas unit. At this point the
compressed data is in mstrmData and the self extractor can continue
writing to the outfile.
Write the length of the data
iTmp := mstrmData.Size;
OutFile.Write( pointer(@iTmp)^, sizeof( integer ) );
Notice that it is necessary to use a temporary integer variable.
Figure 1 number 4 and 5 require the SE Maker to write the length of the
file name and file name of the current file. The file name is needed so
that when the data is extracted the extractor knows what the original
file name was.
iTmp := Length( sCurrentFileName );
OutFile.Write( pointer(@iTmp)^, sizeof( integer ) );
OutFile.Write( PChar(sCurrentFileName)^, iTmp );
That done its on to number 6 of figure 1, write the compressed data.
OutFile.CopyFrom( mstrmData, mstrmData.Size );
mstrmData.Free;
Having done this the current section is complete, if there is more than
one file then numbers 3 to 6 are executed one for each. See figure 3
which shows the order in which the numbers of figure 1 are visited.
<http://users.iafrica.com/d/da/dart/zen/Articles/SelfExtract/Image6.gif>
Figure 3 Self Extracting exe creating order
Lastly, the final step of writing the sections, write the total length
of all the sections
OutFile.Write( pointer(@iSectionsLength)^, sizeof( integer ) );
SE Maker - Writing The Message
iMsgLen:= Length( sMessage );
OutFile.Write( pointer(@iMsgLen)^, sizeof( integer ) );
OutFile.Write( PChar(sMessage)^, iMsgLen );
SE Maker - Write the Magic Number
iNumber := MAGIC_NUMBER;
OutFile.Write( pointer(@iNumber)^, sizeof( integer ) );
MAGIC_NUMBER is a constant. You can basically choose any integer value,
the examples use 1030431278. Just select a really large integer, you
could always use the same magic number as I do. The need for a magic
number will be explained shortly.
You now know how to write a SE Maker. However a SE Maker with no
extractor, to extract the data is not much use. So onto the extractor.
The Extractor
The self extractor is an application that has the data to be extracted
appended to it. It is important that this application be small. There is
no point compressing files and then having a huge extractor. For this
reason it is impractical to use the Delphi UI (user interface) units,
(Forms, Dialogs etc ). Just including Forms.pas will mean a minimum file
size of somewhere around 100k. For most extractors this is unacceptable.
To create the smallest possible extractor, short of resorting to
assembly (yes it is possible!), you would only include Windows.pas and
other WinAPI wrappers. Natrally the compression unit you are using must
also only use these units.
If you can live with a slightly larger executable, you can then use
classes.pas and SysUtils.pas. These units define the Delphi stream
classes and some useful memory managment procedures. Using these classes
will add about 30kb to the extractor, you must decide if the 30kb is
worth it or not. For this article and the examples I will use these two
units as they make everything a lot easier to understand.
Delphi 3 users also have the option of using run-time packages, if you
are using run-time packages then this size issue does not concern you.
The problem is that users who run a self extracting exe, created with
packages enabled, must already have the Delphi 3 packages installed on
their system. Many users may find downloading approximately 1mb of
support files unacceptable. Once again choose the method that best suits
you and your users needs.
The extractor must
1. Check for the magic number
2. Display message
3. Extract files
4. Run setup application
5. Cleanup
Extractor - Magic Number:
The extractor must have some way of checking if data has been appended
to it. If you happen to run the extractor when no data has been appended
to it, who knows what the extractor would try to extract. The method I
use to indicate to the extractor that data has been appended to it is to
write a integer value at the very end of the appended data. The
extractor scans to the end of its exe and if the last integer value is
equal to the magic number it can continue with the extracting.
To check for the magic number the extractor needs read access to its own
executable, this is not a problem
ThisExe := TFileStream.Create( ParamStr( 0 ),
fmOpenRead or fmShareDenyNone
);
ParamStr( 0 ) returns the name and path of the current application.
Since the extractor is not using Delphi's UI classes it can't use
Application.ExeName. Notice that the file is opened in read-only mode
with sharing enabled. This is required, if you try to open a running
application in another mode you will only succeed in getting an error.
Scan to where the magic number is stored (number 10 of figure 1)
ThisExe.Position := ThisExe.Size - sizeof( integer );
Read the magic number
ThisExe.Read( pointer(@iMagicNumber)^, sizeof( integer ) );
Then compare the value read with the magic number. If the value just
read is not equal to the magic number, display an error message and
exit. If the value is the magic number then extraction can continue.
Extractor -The Message
Most current self-extract and install applications display a short
message and allow the user to cancel extraction. This prevents
accidental installs and keeps most users happy.
Since the message can be any length, memory to store the message must by
dynamically allocated. Remember that all strings passed to WinAPI
functions must be NULL (nil or #0) terminated.
ThisExe.Position := ThisExe.Size - (sizeof( integer ) * 2);
ThisExe.Read( pointer(@iMessageLen)^, sizeof( integer ) );
szMessage := StrAlloc( iMessageLen + 1 );
The code above scans to where the length of the message is stored
(number 9 of figure 1), reads the length and allocates memory for the
message. The additional byte is for the NULL terminator.
Next, scan to the beginning of the message (number 8 of figure 1), read
it, and NULL terminate.
ThisExe.Position := ThisExe.Size -
((sizeof( integer ) * 2) + iMessageLen);
ThisExe.Read( szMessage^, iMessageLen );
szMessage[iMessageLen ] := #0;
The WinAPI function MessageBox is used to prompt the user.
Result := (MessageBox( 0,
szMessage,
'SE',
MB_YESNO or MB_ICONQUESTION,
) = IDYES);
StrDispose( szMessage );
This code snippet will show a message box with a question icon and the
message as the main text. The message box will have 2 buttons 'Yes' and
'No'. If 'yes' is clicked then result = true, else result = false.
Having shown the message there is no further use for it, so the memory
used to store it is freed.
Extractor -Extracting the Files
Figure 4 shows the order the extractor follows when it is executed.
<http://users.iafrica.com/d/da/dart/zen/Articles/SelfExtract/Image7.gif>
Figure 4 Order of extractor
Get the length of the sections block (figure 1 number 7)
ThisExe.Position := ThisExe.Size -
((sizeof( integer ) * 3) +
iMessageLen);
ThisExe.Read( pointer(@iSectionsLen)^, sizeof( integer ) );
Then, figure 1 number 2, read the number of sections
ThisExe.Position := ThisExe.Size -
((sizeof( integer ) * 3) +
iMessageLen + iSectionsLen);
ThisExe.Read( pointer(@iNumberOfSections)^, sizeof( integer ) );
The extractor is now at number 3 of figure 1, and has thus just entered
the loop that will extract all the files. Each iteration of this loop
will
1. Read section length
2. Read file name length
3. Read file name
4. Read file data
5. Decompress data
6. Write decompressed data to disk
Read section length
ThisExe.Read( pointer(@iLenSection)^, sizeof( integer ) );
Read the file name
ThisExe.Read( pointer(@iFileNameLen)^, sizeof( integer ) );
szFileName := StrAlloc( iFileNameLen + 1 );
ThisExe.Read( szFileName^, iFileNameLen );
szFileName[ iFileNameLen ] := #0;
Read the file data into a temporary memory stream
mstrmData := TMemoryStream.Create;
mstrmData.CopyFrom( ThisExe, iLenSection );
Decompress the data
mstrmDeCompress:= TMemoryStream.Create;
DeCompress := TSECompress.Create;
DeCompress.DeCompress( mstrmData, mstrmDeCompress );
DeCompress.Free;
mstrmData.Free;
As explained earlier, TSECompress is a class defined in SECompress.pas
which acts as a simple interface to whichever compression method you
choose.
Write decompressed data to disk
mstrmDeCompress.SaveToFile( sTempPath + '\' + szFileName );
StrDispose( szFileName );
mstrmDeCompress.Free;
sTempPath is a string containing the path of the temporary directory
where the files are to be extracted to. Once this has been done for
every file the extraction is complete.
ThisExe.Free;
Extractor -Run the Setup Application
After extraction is finished the extractor runs a file named
"setup.exe". The setup.exe application does the actual instillation. It
creates the necessary directories and copies the files to their final
locations, in other words all the things a setup application is expected
to do.
The setup.exe application included as part of the example, does nothing
but show a message box. While this message box is visible you can use
explorer to verify that all the included files have been extracted
correctly.
It is obviously important that the extractor wait for setup.exe to
finish, before it starts deleting the extracted files . If the extractor
did not wait, setup.exe would be trying to install files that did not
exist.
In the example CreateProcess and WaitForSingleObject are used to make
the extractor wait for setup.exe to terminate. If you want more
information on these two API calls look at the example and the Win32
help file.
Extractor - Cleanup
Removing extracted files is a very important step. If you don't delete
every single temporary file, you will soon start getting hate mail from
your users, if you have any users left that is The example uses a
recursive function to delete every directory and file in the temporary
directory, as well as the temporary directory itself. This allows
setup.exe to create files and directories in the temporary directory.
When the extractor cleans up, these files and directories will also be
removed.
Summary:
Well that is how you would write a self extractor. The example available
from this months subscribers downloads page include a fully functional
extractor and SE Maker. Feel free to use, upgrade or modify it in any
way. The example was written using Delphi 3, so Delphi 2 users might
have a problem opening the .DFM files. If you have this problem get Dr
Bob's Delphi 3 to Delphi 2 converter from http://www.drbob42.com in the
downloads section.
The source code for the extractor and SE maker is also included, and
well documented, so you should have no problems understanding it. The
compression unit is freely available in the SWAG archives and you can
use it freely in any of your applications.
_____
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> All information on these www pages is
copyright (©) 1997 Andre .v.d. Merwe <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> And may
not be copied or mirrored without my permission.
have no problems understanding it. The compression unit is freely
available in the SWAG archives and you can use it freely in any of your
applications.
_____
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> All information on these www pages is
copyright (©) 1997 Andre .v.d. Merwe <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> And may
not be copied or mirrored without my permission.
Atenciosamente;
Elazar Dornelles Ceza
-----Mensagem original-----
De: delphi-br@yahoogrupos.com.br [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Em nome de Alex - Yahoo
Enviada em: quinta-feira, 11 de maio de 2006 14:51
Para: delphi-br@yahoogrupos.com.br
Assunto: Re: [delphi-br] Isto é possível em Delphi ?
Use filestream( procure informações sobre o programa BRCC32.EXE que vem
com o delphi que vc saberá como usar streams).
Alex
----- Original Message -----
From: Rodolfo mendes
To: delphi-br@yahoogrupos.com.br
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2006 1:47 PM
Subject: Re: [delphi-br] Isto é possível em Delphi ?
Me desculpe se não entendi, mas o que você quer fazer é um instalador?
Anderson Furtilho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> escreveu: Olá
amigos da lista!
Teria como embutir um EXE dentro do Meu EXE.
Resumo: O meu EXE principal iria anexar um outro EXE
junto dele.
Depois futuramente eu iria extrair este EXE que esta
junto do meu EXE principal.
Minha ideia é criar um atualizador ao qual o cliente
ira executar meu exe principal e ele por sua vez irá
extrar o exe do programa ja na pasta que eu quero.
Qualquer dica ficarei agradecido!
Um abraço a todos
Anderson Furtilho
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