FAQ

What is sParser

sParser is a tool to decipher ArcGIS symbol style files which are encoded in a binary form. It is difficult to directly read the information in the file through any regular text readers, since it is in binary form.

What is an ArcGIS symbol style file?

An ArcGIS symbol style file is a binary file that describes the style of an ArcGIS symbol. Please note that the style file I mentioned is not the whole file with .style extension, but a portion of it. To get the style file, you need to convert the .style file into .db format. Then extract and save the content in attribute Object from the tables named Fill Symbols, Line Symbols and Marker Symbols for whatever symbols wanted respectively into a file.

How to use sParser

sParser provides a function called grandParser to which you just need to provide a double pointer to the head and tail of the symbol style file in memory. First you need to load the entire symbol style file into char *, then provide a pointer pointing to the first byte of the virtual memory block as well as a pointer pointing to the last byte.

Pointer	head				tail
char *	04	E6	...	00	00

Then the function will return a string in JSON format (jstring), reflecting the features in the style file. For example, if the style is "simple fill pattern", then you can find fillPattern: simple in the output jstring.