$EMBED

The $EMBED metacommand can embed any designated file (e.g. images, sounds, fonts and all other file types) into the compiled EXE file. You can roughly compare this to converting and placing a file's contents into DATA lines, but $EMBED obviously is much more convenient.

Syntax

$EMBED:'filename','handle'

Parameters

IMPORTANT

• Both parameters must be enclosed in single quotes and given as literal strings, variables cannot be used here.
• Your inputs are checked while typing to ensure its validity, warnings (if any) will be displayed immediately in the IDE status area.

• The filename is the name of the file to embed, if required inclusive a full or relative path.
• The handle is a unique case sensitive identifier beginning with a letter and only containing lower/upper case letters and/or numbers, it's used later in the _EMBEDDED$ call to recall the embedded data.
  • You can compare this identifier to the line label in front of a DATA block, which is later used in a RESTORE call to set the READ pointer to exactly that DATA block.

Description

• All files will be embedded in a compressed form, if a 20% least ratio is reached.
  • This low ratio was chosen, cause it will be reached by most files, except those which are already highly compressed such as PNG, JPG, MP3/4, ZIP, 7z etc. and are not worth the additional effort for just a few bytes less.
• To recall the embedded file data use the _EMBEDDED$ call with the very same handle identifier which was used in the respective file's $EMBED line. That call also does the decompression, if required.
• Embedding files can be useful to deliver a program inclusive all required assets in just one EXE file.
• No more worries whether a user installs your program correctly and retains the required folder structure.
• If required, you can easily write the files back to disk using the _WRITEFILE command, i.e. you could create your own simple installer or package manager.
• Embedded images, sounds or fonts can be passed directly to _LOADIMAGE, _SNDOPEN or _LOADFONT respectively when using the memory load capabilities of these functions.
• The $EMBED metacommand can be used everywhere in a program. You may even place it inside pre-compiler $IF..$ELSE...$END IF blocks and only the files designated in the true block are embedded then.
• How many or how big files you can embed depends on your system achitecture (x86/x64) as well as your installed memory. However, it should work just fine for all the normally expected working cases like embedding a font, a spritesheet and some level graphics as well a couple sound effects.
• To avoid useless bloat of the compiled EXE file, the embedding process is smart enough to only embed those files, which are recalled by the _EMBEDDED$ call at least once. I.e. you may $EMBED a dozen files, but if you recall only one of it in your program, then only that one file will be really embedded, while the other files are simply ignored.

Availability

• 
  none
• 
  v3.10.0
• 
• 
  yes
• 
  yes
• 
  yes

Examples

Example

Embeds two image files into the compiled EXE, then memory loads and displays it.

$EMBED:'source\peLogo.png','bigImg' $EMBED:'source\qb64pe.png','smallImg' SCREEN _NEWIMAGE(640, 480, 32) bi& = _LOADIMAGE(_EMBEDDED$("bigImg"), 32, "memory") si& = _LOADIMAGE(_EMBEDDED$("smallImg"), 32, "memory") _PUTIMAGE (140, 180), bi& _PUTIMAGE (410, 230), si& _FREEIMAGE si& _FREEIMAGE bi& END

Example by RhoSigma

See also

• Featured in our "Keyword of the Day" series
• _EMBEDDED$
• DATA, RESTORE, READ
• _LOADFONT, _LOADIMAGE, _SNDOPEN

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