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Comment by turtledragonfly

3 years ago

Oh, this is one I hadn't heard of. There are several different takes on this idea, and I've had the notion to make my own for some years, too (not enough free time...)

I feel like a good "how powerful is this tool, really?" test would be to model the Adobe PSD format with it. That format is bananas, and is what got me into this topic in the first place.

But for those interested, here are some other tools in this vein:

* fq - like jq for binary data: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34434249

4 comments

turtledragonfly

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MontagFTB  3 years ago

Thanks for this compendium. I originally wrote and released binspector, but have since moved to HexFiend, because I like the power Tcl affords as a template language. I too have rewritten specs for PSD too many times to count; it’s one of my favorite nerd-sniping pastimes. I’ll have to explore some of these other links, to find a good editor for my Windows colleagues.

delhanty  3 years ago

Also

* Synalyze It! - Hex Editor for Mac: https://www.synalysis.net/

I am not affiliated Synalyze It!, but have been a customer for several years. Generally, I've been happy with it, though it crashes occasionally. The support has been responsive when I've had licensing issues.

SloopJon  3 years ago

This is why I keep reading these threads, looking for something I can wrap my head around.

I started looking at Kaitai Struct not too long ago. I purposely started with a pretty simple format, but I think I'm not smart enough to figure out the input format. Also, I'm pretty sure I hate YAML.

I tried building Poke just last week, having resolved to try it since 1.0, but hit problems with the Boehm GC on my old Mac, and then what looks like Readline problems on my new Mac. I haven't given up, but I'm off to a slow start.

Hachoir, mentioned in another comment, looks promising, although the input looks suspiciously similar to a program I'd write myself.