read a file in hexadecimal?

Hi,
I have scripted fairly extensively in Applescript and am familiar with the Standard Additions read/write commands. However, I have run into a stumbling block in reading a file in OS X as hexadecimal. Does anyone know if it is possible and what the syntax is? I have tried both:

set fileHeader to read openedFile from 0 to 20 as hex

and

set fileHeader to read openedFile from 0 to 20 as hexadecimal

where fileHeader is the file reference created by:

set openedFile to open for access (choose file)

I can’t seem to get hex or hexadecimal recognized as a data type in OS X, where OS 9 was no problem.

Would the 24U Hex osax help?

You may try these as a vanilla solution:

set h to "48656C6C6F2C20446F6C6C79"
hextoString(h)
--stringtoHex(result) = h

on stringtoHex(this_string)
	this_string as C string
	try
		result * 5
	on error msg
		return text from character 22 of msg to character -19 of msg
	end try
end stringtoHex
on hextoString(t)
	set z to ""
	repeat with i from 1 to t's length by 252
		try
			set z to z & (run script "«data cstr" & ¬
				text from character i of t to character (i + 251) of t & "00» as string")
		on error
			set z to z & (run script "«data cstr" & ¬
				text from character i of t to character -1 of t & "00» as string")
		end try
	end repeat
	z
end hextoString

And, for speed, try has’s libraries: http://www.barple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/roughstuff/index.html#conversionLib

If you need some low-level operation, you may need adaptate these codes, but for simple ascii-hex-integer conversions all will work…