Change Container Files to Interactive Instantly

One of the most interesting phenomena in programming (or in life, for that matter) is when a person thinks “outside the box” and solves a problem in an unconventional manner (these are also known as “Aha” moments).  Stephen, a senior FileMaker developer at Digital Fusion, had such a moment recently when tasked with converting thousands of container files on a client system from a basic file in a container field to an interactive file in the same container field.  His “Aha” moment was simplicity itself:

Stephen tested and showed that if you use FileMaker 13’s Base64Encode and Base64Decode functions, you can convert container data into interactive container data, here’s how it works:

Base64Decode ( Base64Encode ( Container ) ; Filename )

That’s it!  He realised that the encode function simply encodes data with no knowledge of its file type.  The decode function however requires you to specify a filename with extension. This is the key thing, decode function will turn the encoded text back into a file of the nominated stream depending on the extension you choose.  All you need to do is make sure the filename is the same as the original files name and you’re all set!

The team at Digital Fusion took is a step further and wrote a custom function, which they put into a downloadable example file, available at the link below.

Change Containers from Files to Interactive Content in an Instant.

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