NAME
bbe - binary block editor
SYNOPSIS
bbe [options]...
DESCRIPTION
bbe is a sed-like editor for binary files. It performs binary
transformations on the blocks of input stream.
OPTIONS
bbe accepts the following options:
-b, --block=BLOCK
Block definition.
-e, --expression=COMMAND
Add the COMMAND to the commands to be executed.
-f, --file=script-file
Add the contest of script-file to commands.
-o, --output=name
Write output to name instead of standard output.
-s, --suppress
Suppress normal output, print only block contents.
-?, --help
List all available options and their meanings.
-V, --version
Show version of program.
BLOCK can be defined as:
N:M Where N’th byte starts a M bytes long block (first byte is 0).
:M Block length in input stream is M.
/start/:M
String start starts M bytes long block.
/start/:/stop/
String start starts the block and block ends to string stop.
/start/:
String start starts the block and block will end at next
occurence of start. Only the first start is included to the
block.
:/stop/
Block starts at the beginning of input stream (or at the end of
previous block) and ends at the next occurrence of stop. String
stop will be included to the block.
Special value ’$’ of M means the end of stream.
Default value for block is 0:$, meaning the whole input stream.
Both start and stop strings are included to block. Nonprintable
characters can be escaped as
\nnn decimal
\xnn hexadecimal
\0nnn octal
Character ’\’ can be escaped as ’\\’. Escape codes
’\a’,’\b’,’\t’,’\n’,’\v’,’\f’,’\r’ and ’\;’ can also be used.
Length (N and M) can be defined as decimal (n), hexadecimal (xn) or
octal (0n) value.
COMMAND SYNOPSIS
bbe has two type of commands: block and byte commands, both are allways
related to current block. That means that the input stream outside of
block remains untouched.
Block commands
D [n] Delete the n’th block. Without n, all found blocks are deleted
from the output stream.
I string
Insert the string string before the block.
A string
Append the string string at the end of block.
J n Skip n blocks before executing commands after this command.
L n Leave all blocks unmodified starting from block number n.
Affects only commands after this command.
N Before printing a block, the file name in which the block starts
is printed.
F f Before printing a block, the input stream offset at the begining
of the block is printed. f can be H, D or O for Hexadecimal,
Decimal or Octal format of offset.
B f Before printing a block, the block number is printed (first
block == 1) f can be H, D or O for Hexadecimal, Decimal or Octal
format of block number.
> file Before printing a block, the contents of file file is printed.
< file After printing a block, the contents of file file is printed.
Byte commands
n in byte commands is offset from the beginning of current block
(starts from zero).
r n string
Replace bytes starting at position n with string string.
i n string
Insert string starting at position n.
p format
The contents of block is printed in format defined by format.
format can have any of the formats H, D, O, A and B for
Hexadecimal, Decimal, Octal, Asciii and Binary.
s/search/replace/
Replace all occurrences of search with replace.
y/source/dest/
Translate bytes in source to the corresponding bytes in dest.
Source and dest must have equal length.
d n m|*
Delete m bytes starting from the offset n. If * is defined
instead of m, then all bytes starting from n are deleted.
c from to
Convert bytes from format from to to. Currently supported
formats are:
BCD Binary coded decimal
ASC Ascii
j n Commands after the j-command are ignored for first n bytes of
the block.
l n Commands after the l-command are ignored from n’th byte of the
block.
w file Write bytes from the current block to file file. Commands before
w-command have effect to what will be written. %B or %nB in
file will be replaced by current block number. n in %nB is field
length, leading zero in n causes the block number to be left
padded with zeroes.
& c Performs binary and with c.
| c Performs binary or with c.
^ c Performs binary xor with c.
~ Performs binary negation.
u n c All bytes from start of the block to offset n are replaced by c.
f n c All bytes starting from offset n to end of the block are
replaced by c.
x Exchange the contents of nibbles (half an octet) of bytes.
Nonvisible characters in strings can be escaped same way as in block
definition strings. Character ’/’ in s and y commands can be any
visible character.
Note that the D, A, I, F, B, c, s, i, y, p, <, > and d commands cause
the length of input and output streams to be different.
EXAMPLES
bbe -e "s/c:\\temp\\data1.txt/c:\\temp\\data2.txt/" file1
all occurences of "c:\temp\data1.txt" in file file1 are changed
to "c:\temp\data2.txt"
bbe -b 0420:16 -e "r 4 \x12\x4a" file1
Two bytes starting at fifth byte of a 16 byte long block
starting at offset 0420 (octal) in file1 are changed to
hexadecimal values 12 and 4a.
bbe -b :16 -e "A \x0a" file1
Newline is added after every block, block length is 16.
SEE ALSO
sed(1).
AUTHOR
Timo Savinen <tjsa@iki.fi>
2006-11-02