Parsing binary data

A list of generic tools for parsing binary data structures, such as file formats, network protocols or bitstreams.

Parser generators, parsing libraries and frameworks

Spicy (DSL, C/C++, Bro): a next-generation parser generator for network protocols and file formats
Nom (Rust): Rust parser combinator framework
Hammer (C): bit-oriented parsing library
Kaitai Struct (DSL): declarative language used for describe various binary data structures, laid out in files or in memory
Hachoir (Python): view and edit a binary stream field by field. Long list of parsers for all kinds of formats
Construct and Construct 3 (Python): library for parsing and building of data structures (binary or textual). Define your data structures in a declarative manner
DataScript Tools (DSL): DataScript is a formal language for modelling binary datatypes, bitstreams or file formats. PDF
Parsifal (OCaml): OCaml-based parsing engine. Paper: A pragmatic solution to the binary parsing problem. Olivier Levillain
Haka (Lua): open source security oriented language which allows to describe protocols and apply security policies on (live) captured traffic
BinData (Ruby): provides a declarative way to read and write structured binary data
Binary-parser (Node): binary parser builder library for node, which enables you to write efficient parsers in a simple & declarative way
Gloss (Clojure): turn complicated byte formats into Clojure data structures and Clojure data structures into compact byte representations
Preon (Java): Bit syntax for Java. A declarative data binding framework for dealing with binary encoded data
attoparsec and attoparsec-binary: (Haskell): fast parser combinator library, aimed particularly at dealing efficiently with network protocols and complicated text/binary file formats
Marpa (C/C++, Perl, Go): libmarpa (C)
Scapy (Python): send, sniff and dissect and forge network packets. Usable interactively or as a library
libtins (C++): crafting, sending, sniffing and interpreting raw network packets
libcrafter (C++): high level library for C++ designed to create and decode network packets

Stand-alone software

Hex editors with grammars

Wireshark

Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer that includes dissectors for over two thousand protocols.

TShark: command line version, can easily be called from shell scripts.
Wireshark Generic Dissector: add-on, allows dissection of a protocol based on a text description of the protocol elements
Wireshark Lua: dissectors can be written in Lua (Examples)
pyreshark: plugin providing a simple interface for writing Wireshark dissectors in Python
Sharktools (Python, Matlab): Tools for programmatic parsing of packet captures using Wireshark functionality

Other Stand-alone Software

Netzob: open source tool for reverse engineering, traffic generation and fuzzing of communication protocols
Cat Karat Packet Builder: packet generation tool that allows to build custom packets for firewall or target testing
radare2 (C, with bindings/pipe for almost all languages): Unix-like reverse engineering framework and commandline tools. See Parsing a fileformat with radare2 and Types.

Research papers

Nail: A Practical Tool for Parsing and Generating Data Formats. Julian Bangert and Nickolai Zeldovich,
GAPA: Generic Application-Level Protocol Analyzer and its Language. Nikita Borisov, David J. Brumley, Helen J. Wang, Chuanxiong Guo
PADS/ML: a functional data description language. Y. Mandelbaum, K. Fisher, D. Walker, M. F. Fernandez, and A. Gleyzer.
PacketTypes: P. J. McCann and S. Chandra. Packet types: Abstract specification of network protocol messages.
Zebu: A Language-Based Approach for Improving the Robustness of Network Application Protocol Implementations. Larent Burgy et. al.
Zebra: Improving the Performance of Message Parsers for Embedded Systems. Jigar Solanki et. al.
z2z: Automatic Generation of Network Protocol Gateways. Yerom-David Bromberg, Laurent Reveillere, Julia L. Lawall, Gilles Muller
Yakker: Semantics and Algorithms for Data-dependent Grammars. Trevor Jim, Yitzhak Mandelbaum, David Walker
BinPAC: Superseded by BinPAC++, which is now known as Spicy
FlowSifter: High-Speed Application Protocol Parsing and Extraction for Deep Flow Inspection. Alex X. Liu, Chad R. Meiners, Eric Norige, and Eric Torng
TSN.1: Transfer Syntax Notation One (TSN.1). A formal notation for describing messages in binary protocols
NetPDL: Markup Language that aims to describe Protocols from OSI layer 2 to OSI layer 7
Tupni: Automatic Reverse Engineering of Input Formats. Weidong Cui et. al.
W. Underwood Grammar-Based Specification and Parsing of Binary File Formats. William Underwood

Lists of interesting binary formats

This is obviously rather subjective and definitely not supposed to be a complete list:

examyes/binary-parsing