Can you write this better?

[Alan777]

I need to write a lot of Long values to a file fast.
If I use Write, a Long value will use 8 characters in the
file. I have prepared a module to convert a Long value
to a 3 character string for writing to a file (and convert it back again).
Is this ok? It works fine but is there a better, less messy way?
Also I don't want to use binary mode as it is painfully slow.

Public Function ThreeByteStringFromLong(lngNumber As Long) As String
 ThreeByteStringFromLong = Chr(R(lngNumber)) + Chr(G(lngNumber)) + Chr(B(lngNumber))
End Function

Public Function LongFromThreeByteString(str3Byte As String) As Long
 Dim strA As String
 Dim strB As String
 Dim strC As String
 strA = Left(str3Byte, 1)
 strB = Mid(str3Byte, 2, 1)
 strC = Right(str3Byte, 1)
 LongFromThreeByteString = RGB(Val(strA), Val(strB), Val(strC))
End Function

Private Function R(lColor As Long) As Byte
 R = lColor And &HFF&
End Function

Private Function G(lColor As Long) As Byte
 G = Int(lColor / &H100&) And &HFF&
End Function

Private Function B(lColor As Long) As Byte
 B = Int(lColor / &H10000) And &HFF&
End Function

[Dreamlax]

Binary? Slow? Maybe I'm getting confused now.

[Alan777]

Binary? Slow? Maybe I'm getting confused now.

Well, when you use binary mode for file access, you are processing the file byte by byte right? Whereas if you can use, say Line Input, that is a heck of a lot faster.
I did something else like this once before to test the theory, and while I was able to make the file 8 times smaller using binary mode, it also took 8 times longer to process the data.

[Alan777]

To me, binary mode is only good if you need to manipulate a few bytes of a file and you know exactly where they are in the file.