faultreiber
generates a parser library in C for a structured (binary) file format. The input is an XML file that describes the format.
The C source code will be in the form of multiple source and header files.
The headers have header guards and are already extern "C"
ed.
For a practical example, look at the example XML file under resources
. The XML file describes the format of a WASM object file:
To run the demo, run run.sh
, go to the test
direcotory and run make test
to run the executable.
To run valgrind --leak-check=yes
run make valgrind
.
Code generated by faultreiber should not leak any memory if everything went according to plan during code-gen. If that's not the case let me knkow.
A function named read_aggr_{name}
will be generated that takes an int _fd
file descriptor for the file that it will read.{name}
is what you pass to faultreiber with the --name
option.
The return type will be a C structure with type {name}_lib_ret_t
. The struct is defined as:
typedef struct {
name_obj_t obj;
void** void_train;
uint64_t* current_void_size;
uint64_t* current_void_count;
}name_lib_ret_t
{name}_obj_t
is a C structure defined in aggregate.h
that holds all the read modules.
A function named release_all_{name}
will be generated in aggregate.c
that releases almost all the memory.
The proper order of realeasing the memory in the client code will be like below assuming the return value of read_aggr_{name}
is stored in lib_ret
and --name
was passed a value of wasm
:
release_all_wasm(lib_ret->void_train, lib_ret->current_void_count);
free(lib_ret->obj);
free(lib_ret);
The root node should have two childs, named exactly READ
and DEFINITION
(order not important).
The READ
node will include the actual structures that the parser will read and can return.
The DEFINITION
node includes the definitions for the structures that are aggregate.
Any child node of either DEFINITION
or READ
will have to at least have the attributes name
and type
defined. The presence of the attribute count
is optional but if it's not present faultreiber will assume that the count is one.
The presence of the attribute isaggregate
signifies the fact that the data structure is composed of other smaller parts. faultreiber will only read the children of a node that is the child of either the DEFINITION
or READ
node(unless a child node has the attribute conditional
set). If a data structure requires more children then you should add a new node under DEFINITION
and reference that node from it's parent. In other words, an aggregate node can't itself have child nodes that are aggregate.
count
, size
, type
and condition
attributes can reference a child node of the DEFINITION
node. To do that, you should use self::TAG
.
the tag names of the nodes that are on the same level should be unique. The name
attribute of the nodes on the same level need to be unique as well.
The order of the nodes that appear as children of the DEFINITION
node, even when the child nodes are referencing each other, is unimportant to faultreiber.
Tags should follow the naming convention for naming XML nodes. The name
attributes should follow the C identifier naming convention(if the value of the name
attribute is invalid in C as as identifier you're going to end up with code that won't even build).
The following values are valid values for the type
attribute:
- int8
- uint8
- int16
- uint16
- int32
- uint32
- int64
- uint64
- int128
- uint128
- float
- double
- string
- FT::conditional
- self::TAG
For string nodes, the node should either have a non-empty size
attribute or have a delimiter
attribute. In case a delimiter
attribute is selected the value of the delimiter should be provided as the value of the delimiter
attribute to the node.
Strings read through a delimiter
node will have their delimiter attached to the end of the string(null-terminated or otherwise). String reads that have a size
attribute will be forcefully null-terminated even if the original string was not null-terminated.
Child nodes of READ
node that have the unordered
attribute set, will be regarded as such, meaning they can appear in the file sporaically. Such nodes will have to have a child node with attriute sign
.The value of the sign attribute is used to check for the presence of the parent node in the file.
unorderedbegin
and unorderedend
attributes denote the begenning and end of an unordered section in the READ
node. For every unordered section, only one node needs to define the begin and end attributes. All the other nodes, including the nodes that define the unorderedbegin
and unorderedend
attributes, shall have the unordered
attribute defined.
Any child of the READ
node that is not inside an unordered block or doesnt have the unordered
attribute set, will be regarded as ordered.
Whether int128
or uint128
are defined depends on your the C implementation you are using on your host. If 128-bit integers are not supported or you need to read in bigger integers, you can simply use a smaller int type and increase the count
attribute accordingly.
The FT::conditional
tag for a type means that the actual content of the node will depend on a value. The attribute condition
will provide what that condition is. The value for the condition should be provided as text for the different nodes that define what the actual contents should be.
size
attribute is currently only meaningful when the type
attribute is set as string
in which case it denotes the size of the string.
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--targetname TARGETNAME
main target name
--outdir OUTDIR path to output dir
--structs STRUCTS the structs json file
--structsinclude STRUCTSINCLUDE
the path to the header that's going to be included by
structs.h before structure declarations.
--xml XML paht to the xml file
--dbg debug
--datetime print date and time in autogen files
--inline inlines reader funcs
--static statics reader funcs
--verbose verbose
--forcenullterm terminate all strings with null even if they are not
originally null-terminated
--strbuffersize STRBUFFERSIZE
the size of the buffer for string reads
--strbuffgrowfactor STRBUFFGROWFACTOR
the factor by which the strbuffer will grow
--voidbuffersize VOIDBUFFERSIZE
the size of the buffer for void* buffer
--voidbuffgrowfactor VOIDBUFFGROWFACTOR
the factor by which the voidbuffer will grow
--singlefile the generated code will be put in a single file
--singlefilename SINGLEFILENAME
name of the single file
--name will be used in generating some code identifiers
Big-Endian reads are not supported.
None-byte-sized raw reads are not supported.
That would be on you but there is an example makefile in the test
directory so you can take a look if you want.
You can also get generic ones from here. They're licensed under the Unlicense.
All the items under limitations.
Figure out what the license of the generated code is.
The list of the projects that use faulreiber:
faultreiber
is provided under MIT. I'm assuming(I'm not a lawyer) the generated code is considered "derived work". If it is, then the generated code will also fall under MIT.