andreas1234567 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Honorable Monks

Advanced Function Presentation is a file format comparable to PDF. Developed by IBM in the 80's it is a complex system to control text and graphics on pages.

I am in charge of two systems that communicate using the AFP file format. I would like to understand whether it is possible to parse and validate these complex, binary files.

There is a module Parse::AFP by long time perl 6 and CPAN contributor Audrey Tang. It allows modification of AFP files and comes with a script afpdump.pl that allows contents to be dumped to HTML.

Could anyone share their experience or insights on AFP file parsing and validation?

--
No matter how great and destructive your problems may seem now, remember, you've probably only seen the tip of them. [1]

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Re: AFP file parsing and validation
by Bloodnok (Vicar) on Oct 10, 2013 at 10:45 UTC
    Hiya Andreas ,

    AFP is actually far more than just '...a complex system to control text and graphics on pages' - it also encapsulates print management capability e.g. alternate printer designation, output paper choice etc. etc. for typically mainframe environments.

    Maybe this may be of some help to you ? There is also, not unexpectedly, quite a bit of info on publib, but that requires access to the IBM interweb.

    HTH (a bit at least:-)

    A user level that continues to overstate my experience :-))
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