Use INCBIN statement in an assembly file.
That way you can pad it yourself.

Aelius.

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jason Emery [mailto:felixd@...]
>Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 23:18
>To: gbadev@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: [gbadev] How to add binary data files to projects?
>
>
>
> Here is my problem: I would like to convert a (large) binary data file into
an object file so I can insert it into my
>project, thr problem is that I can't find a proper way to do it. Here is the
alternatives I found so far: (note that I'm
>using Visual C++ 6.0 and ARM Developer Suite 1.1)
>
> 1/ Convert the file to an array and let the compiler create the object.
> Pros: easy to do, even you dont have a converter, you can write one
in less than 15 minutes.
> Cons: the size of the output .c file increases exponentially compared
to the input binary file. At some point
>compiling the file can take up to 1/2 hour and eat more than 1g swap memory.
(the input data files are 8megabytes+ in size)
>
> 2/ Convert the file using bin2o by Darkfader.
> Pros: easy to use and fast.
> Cons: the output object file is byte array-based so it won't be
padded by the compiler, and you can have
>unaligned reads if you read more than one byte at a time. Also, the output file
cannot be used with MS's compiler.
>
> 3/ Convert the file using objcopy.
> Pros: err, i can't find any, except that it outputs an (unusable)
object file.
> Cons: data is moved to .data section (iwram) so i can't really use
it, plus it's unaligned as Darkfader's bin2o.
>Same remark regarding Visual Studio.
>
> Please note that i'm using Visual with the embedded compiler, not GCC. (not
using gcc at all for compiling)
>
> If someone have an idea on how to do that, i'll be grateful.
>
>What I plan on doing is creating raw files and importing via assembly .s files,
then assigning them global variables
>through extern statements in my C code. This is done using the INCBIN command
as mentioned in the assembly program, then
>writing an extern to the symbol you use.
>
>An example of this assembly file is:
>
>.code 16
>.align 4
>.text
>.global VariableName
>.type VariableName,"object"
>VariableName:
>.incbin "filename.raw"
>
>And in C, you'd type:
>
>extern const char const VariableName[];
>
>Or some similar array type, depending on what you need, though I have yet to
test this thoroughly.
>
>Also, I've just written a program to convert a .c/.h file array to a .raw file
for this purpose, so I can use whatever
>data or program I want (many don't convert to .raw). If anyone wants it, feel
free to ask.
>
>(My sprite file was 8 megs uncompiled, which was taking about a minute or two
to compile.)
>
>Jason Emery
>World Tree Games
>
>
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