Tool for locating hex sequence in binary file

Question

Is there a Linux tool out there that locates a bit sequence given in hexadecimal representation in a binary file no matter how those bits are aligned in the file?

Example: I want to locate the two byte long sequence f2 40 in a binary file. The perfectly aligned representation f2 40 can easily be found using hd and grep. But I also want to find 01 e4 80, d3 e4 81 or ff e4 80 (which all include f2 40 shifted by one bit to the left).

sehe · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-23 14:51:41Z

3

Interesting task!

Here is a simple 1-line C++ filter that you can use:

#include <bitset>
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    for (char ch; std::cin.get(ch); std::cout << std::bitset<8>(ch));
}

Use it like this:

cat file.bin | binfilter | grep '1111001001000000'

You might want to improve the filter to print address identifications (like xxd or od do for octal/dex dumps). Alternatively, you can do the matching in C++.

answered Nov 23, 2011 at 14:51

sehe

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3 Comments

MBober Over a year ago

Thanks for your answer. I thought of writing a simple script/tool myself. However, my question was if there already exists a tool for that purpose.

sehe Over a year ago

@MBober: I guess you have my answer :)

MBober Over a year ago

Let's keep this unanswered for a bit and see if anyone mentions an already existing tool. If not, I will accept your answer.

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