PackedAnsiString Stream Structure
Applies to: Outlook 2013 | Outlook 2016
The PackedAnsiString stream structure contains an ANSI representation of a string, based on the ANSI code page of the computer on which Microsoft Outlook is running. This string is not terminated by a null character. Data elements in this stream are stored in little-endian byte order, immediately following each other in the order listed below. The actual data elements that exist depend on the length of the string in ANSI representation.
For a string whose ANSI representation contains less than 255 bytes, the data elements are as follows:
Length: BYTE (1 byte), the length, in number of bytes, of the ANSI representation of the string.
Characters: An array of CHAR. The count of this array is equal to the Length data element. The data in the array is the ANSI representation of the string.
For a string whose ANSI representation contains 255 to 65535 bytes, the data elements are as follows:
Prefix: BYTE (1 byte), the value of 255 (0xff).
Length: WORD (2 bytes), the length, in number of bytes, of the ANSI representation of the string.
Characters: An array of CHAR. The count of this array is equal to the Length data element. The data in the array is the ANSI representation of the string.