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Date:      Mon, 17 Jun 2002 15:37:49 +0300
From:      Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>
To:        Darren Pilgrim <dmp@pantherdragon.org>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Searching and editting multi-GB binary files?
Message-ID:  <20020617123749.GC17819@hades.hell.gr>
In-Reply-To: <3D0DAD27.D0F966CF@pantherdragon.org>
References:  <3D0DAD27.D0F966CF@pantherdragon.org>

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On 2002-06-17 02:34 -0700, Darren Pilgrim wrote:
> Anyone know of a way to edit multi-gigabyte binary files?  I have some
> hard disk images, one's 1.2GB, the other 20GB.  I need to search them
> for volume signatures, then snip bytes from both ends of the file to get
> a volume image prepared for vnode access.  I need to be able to actually
> see certain small parts of the files to get the truncation right, but am
> not sure how to go about this.

The editors/hexedit port might come handy if you don't feel like
messing around with hd(1) and dd(1).

> Do I even need an editor for this task?  Can grep give me all the
> information I need to use dd/truncate to do this?

If you pay close attention to what blocks you are editing, then using
hd(1) to dump the contents of these files, tr(1) to generate binary
files with the proper data and dd(1) to backup the proper part of the
binary file and insert the new data at the right place should be fine.

So, I guess, the answer would be "no, you don't really need a binary
file editor, unless it makes you work faster and more reliably, in
which case hexedit will be a great tool for you".

- Giorgos


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