hex/README.adoc

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hex
===
'hex' is yet another hex viewer. It automatically interprets fields within
files using a set of Lua scripts, colorizing them and showing descriptions on
the side.
At the moment there aren't that many features and we only have a few decoders.
image::hex.png[align="center"]
Packages
--------
Regular releases are sporadic. git master should be stable enough. You can get
a package with the latest development version from Archlinux's AUR.
Building and Running
--------------------
Build dependencies: CMake, pkg-config, help2man, liberty (included),
termo (included) +
Runtime dependencies: ncursesw, libunistring, Lua >= 5.3 (for highlighting)
$ git clone --recursive https://git.janouch.name/p/hex.git
$ mkdir hex/build
$ cd hex/build
$ cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
$ make
To install the application, you can do either the usual:
# make install
Or you can try telling CMake to make a package for you. For Debian it is:
$ cpack -G DEB
# dpkg -i hex-*.deb
Having the program installed, optionally create a configuration file and run it
on a file of your choice.
Configuration
-------------
Create _~/.config/hex/hex.conf_ with contents like the following:
....
colors = {
footer = ""
footer_hl = "bold"
bar = "reverse"
bar_hl = "reverse bold"
even = ""
odd = ""
selection = "reverse"
}
....
Terminal caveats
----------------
Terminals are somewhat tricky to get consistent results on, so be aware of the
following:
- Xterm needs `XTerm*metaSendsEscape: true` for the default bindings to work
- urxvt's 'vtwheel' plugin sabotages scrolling
Performance
-----------
While the Lua API has been made considerably easy to write new decoders with,
the design is far from efficient as we make tons of new formatted strings.
Since we need Lua 5.3 features (64-bit integers), LuaJIT can't help us here.
Similar software
----------------
* https://ide.kaitai.io/ and https://codisec.com/veles/ are essentially what
this project wanted to be but the description language is purely declarative
* https://bitbucket.org/haypo/hachoir/wiki/Home seems to be strictly
hierarchical, which may not work for file formats like ELF
* https://github.com/ruslashev/elfcat is a more interactive viewer for ELF
Contributing and Support
------------------------
Use https://git.janouch.name/p/hex to report any bugs, request features,
or submit pull requests. `git send-email` is tolerated. If you want to discuss
the project, feel free to join me at ircs://irc.janouch.name, channel #dev.
Bitcoin donations are accepted at: 12r5uEWEgcHC46xd64tt3hHt9EUvYYDHe9
License
-------
This software is released under the terms of the 0BSD license, the text of which
is included within the package along with the list of authors.