Self Editing XML File

This particular post is a rehash of one I didn't some years back. Basically it is a little technique I developed some 7 or 8 years ago to solve a simple database issue once but I wanted only one file to exist in this case the exe or sorts that was also the xml file. As this applies to Silverlight in the since that I can use this application technique to also be used as a shell for a Silverlight application without all the silly security barriers... > : )

DISCLAMIER: I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE USE OF THIS TECHNOLOGY IN FACT YOU SHOULD STOP READING NOW BEFORE YOU HURT YOUR SELF OR OTHERS...

But lets not focus on that... lets focus on the mechanics of what we are talking about. A long time ago in a galaxy far far away there was a company called Microsoft that as the center of the universe they released this cool little DHTML technology back before they changed the name to AJAX and it was still cool called an HTA or Hyper Text Application or 'HTml Application' which basically is an HTML file with the file extension of '.hta' instead of '.html' and when you have one of these locally and you click on it, it then renders without all that silly browser chrome/buttons etc. oh and with the rights of a win32 app installed locally...

Basically with a little markup you can control and manipulate the browser chrome and any com object on the system with a script friendly API you can talk to.

Now this 'hta' thing works if the page is hosted on a web page too... albeit you get ONE security dialog that doesn’t really explain what is going on and if the user clicks ok the hta runs as a locally installed app w/o silly security sandbox stuff going on... and yes that basically means it can for all intents and purposes fdisk your hard drive...

DISCLAMER 2: STOP READING HERE AND DON'T DO THIS STUFF.

Like anything though this can be used for good and evil.

Ok back to how to-do it. if you Google HTA on Bing (or Google) you can get the reference material for hta's but basically it is an html file that runs in a version of IE w/o the sandbox. so basically any html that works there works in the hta too with the added addition of this tag:

<HTA:APPLICATION id="oVDProcess"
applicationName="Virtual Desktop - Lite"
singleinstance="yes"
caption="no"
contextmenu="no"
innerborder="no"
scroll="no"
showintaskbar="no"
version="1.0.032"
SELECTION="no"
windowState="normal"
icon="img\im_gray.ico"
/ >

Now as mentioned you can also access any of your com objects the XML Document object or the 'File System' object... here is some sample code from my magic self editing file:

var oDOM = null;
var giHeight = 360;
var giWidth = 800;

function initFrm() {
try {
self.resizeTo( giWidth, giHeight );
self.moveTo( ( window.screen.availWidth - giWidth ) / 2, ( window.screen.availHeight - giHeight ) / 2 );

oDOM = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
oDOM.async = false;
oDOM.loadXML( oXMLDATA.innerHTML );
instantReport();
} catch(e) {
alert( "Your OS is missing components or they are disabled for processing XML data!\nDESC: " + e.description );
}
}

Notice in this case the code creates the xml document object and loads part of the 'HTML' in...

And here is another sample:


function saveSelf() {
var oFSO = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
var oTempFile = oFSO.OpenTextFile( "xLinks.XML.hta", 1 );
var sSelfSource = String( oTempFile.ReadAll() );

var oPAGEARRAY = sSelfSource.split( '<meta' + ' val="2345"/>' );

var sNewSource = oPAGEARRAY[0] + '<meta' + ' val="2345"/> <xml id="oXMLDATA"> ' + oDOM.xml + ';</xml><meta' + ' val="2345"/> ' + oPAGEARRAY[2]

var oSDOM = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
oSDOM.async = false;
oSDOM.loadXML( sNewSource );

if( oSDOM.xml != "" ) {
var oNewFile = oFSO.CreateTextFile( "xLinks.XML.hta", 1 );
oNewFile.WriteLine( oSDOM.xml );
oNewFile.close();
oNewFile = null;
alert( "Save Success!" );
window.close();
} else {
alert( "Save Operation Failed!" );
}
}

This function creates a File System Object. The trick here is basically the file runs as an HTA i.e. executable but then loads itself as a xml file or custom xml data base and updates 'records' in itself and overwrites itself. Now the trick here is that your HTML must be XML complaint. Really if you don't know what this means maybe you should start somewhere else before reading about how to hurt yourself with this stuff... :)