NX: Reading and writting the 2 byte flag indicator

[Bill Robertson]

My directions have:
Data section. (offset into file equal to "offset to start of record zero" value)
Repeat to end of file:
2 byte flag. 00 implies valid record, 0x8000 implies deleted record .
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Two questions regarding this:
1. How do you write 0x8000 to the file to mark an entry as deleted.
What format is this? I have used numerous raf.write() and raf.writeX()
forms but they all produce junk.
2. Also, how do you read this 2 byte flag indicator?
I have read the flag using multiple forms
of raf.read() and raf.readX(), but none of them ouput 00. For example the following outputs 2. So I must not be reading it correctly.
byte[] record = new byte[2];
System.out.println(raf.read(record));

[Tony Collins]

Well I used file channels and put...
byte[] flag ={-128,0};
into a bytebuffer and then wrote it to the channel.
Or you can use any of the methods in RandomAccessFile or DataOutputStream.
Remember when you write the actual fields to the file that they have to be encoded.
Tony

[Noah Le]

you can cast 0x8000 to a short and use a file channel or a stream to write it to output. or you could use RandomAccessFile's writeShort(int) method.

[Bill Robertson]

any help on number 2:
2. Also, how do you read this 2 byte flag indicator?
I have read the flag using multiple forms
of raf.read() and raf.readX(), but none of them ouput 00. For example the following outputs 2. So I must not be reading it correctly.
byte[] record = new byte[2];
System.out.println(raf.read(record));

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[Davidd Smith]

Hi, Bill,
Did you try RandomAccessFile's readShort()?
Regards
Davidd

[Bill Robertson]

i don't know how i skipped over trying to test that one but it
works. thanks Davidd !!!