Re: Binary file features?

[Basile Starynkevitch]

On 7/17/23 07:56, Ergus wrote:
> Hi all:
>
> If there is a binary file with known format (ie, it was somehow saved
> form C++ or numpy) nothing extremely complicated something like an array
> of structs, or a header+payload of known data...
>
> Do we have anything in elisp to visualize the data in some user-friendly
> way? (after providing some information about the format somehow?)


Yes. A well documented binary format is the ELF format (Executable and 
Linkable Format, used for binaries on Linux, most Unixes, etc...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executable_and_Linkable_Format

An alternative could be to use the BJSON format specification:

http://bjson.org/


Or the RPC/XDR one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_Data_Representation


In the context of GNU emacs, you might need to patch its C source code 
to add some few routines dedicated to that binary format (that you have 
chosen, and whose specification you know completely). This means writing 
your plugin for GNU emacs and extending nicely GNU emacs code to do the 
appropriate dlopen/dlsym. Some C code already exists in file 
src/dynlib.c of GNU emacs 30. Or to write some Elisp code communicating 
with your daemon handling that binary format.


NB. my pet open source project is the RefPerSys inference engine on 
http://refpersys.org/ and https://github.com/RefPerSys/RefPerSys/ - I 
believe that you could take several thousands lines of code from it and 
reuse them in your GNU emacs plugin.

--
Basile Starynkevitch                  <basile@starynkevitch.net>
(only mine opinions / les opinions sont miennes uniquement)
92340 Bourg-la-Reine, France
web page: starynkevitch.net/Basile/