2.3 Legacy Detail Member Binary Format

Whereas the light binary format represents everything about a given pivot table, the legacy binary format conceptually consists of a number of named sources, each of which consists of a number of named variables, each of which is a 1-dimensional array of numbers or strings or a mix. Thus, the legacy binary member format is quite simple.

This section uses the same context-free grammar notation as in the previous section, with the following additions:

vAF(x)

In a version 0xaf legacy member, x; in other versions, nothing. (The legacy member header indicates the version; see below.)

vB0(x)

In a version 0xb0 legacy member, x; in other versions, nothing.

A legacy detail member .bin has the following overall format:

LegacyBinary =>
    00 byte[version] int16[n-sources] int32[member-size]
    Metadata*[n-sources]
    #Data*[n-sources]
    #Strings?

version is a version number that affects the interpretation of some of the other data in the member. Versions 0xaf and 0xb0 are known. We will refer to “version 0xaf” and “version 0xb0” members later on.

A legacy member consists of n-sources data sources, each of which has Metadata and Data.

member-size is the size of the legacy binary member, in bytes.

The Data and Strings above are commented out because the Metadata has some oddities that mean that the Data sometimes seems to start at an unexpected place. The following section goes into detail.

• Metadata
• Numeric Data
• String Data