Re: File Examiner 1.1
- Posted by Everett Williams <rett at GVTC.COM> Mar 20, 2000
- 438 views
Private thru the list. Agent Spectre wrote: >Im not sure why either! Problem with the list serve? Did not mean to accuse. Probably at my end entirely, but I was getting very frustrated after typing the reply three times...even at my typing speed. snip > >Thanks for your comments. File Examiner was intended as just that... but I >guess it would be nice to have better file edit functions and a wider >window. To implement this I am thinking of redesigning the interface >completely, give me a couple of days. > >>Now we get to the nitty gritty of updating >>files in the raw. The reason I wanted a wider view was so that I could >>see ASCII strings in the binary. Also, many times when I have update >>instructions, they go like this. "Go to a particular hex offset in the file >and >>then go to the hex address you find at that offset." I can accomplish that >>with your program, but I will need a pencil and some time. We need the >>location and the content in hex as well as decimal and ASCII, both for >>information and for entry. There is plenty of room for more boxes on your >>current setup. Maybe I was a bit too frank in my discussion. Unfortunately, while hex examination is a rarity in modern programming, it used to be one of the standard debugging methods. We got quite good at it, and the tools were well suited for the purpose even though we didn't have the interactive capabilities now available. Normally, my hex dumps came 1000 to 3000 pages at a whack. I could even guide an inexperienced operator through a dump over the phone...allowing the person to report to me what I needed to know without a 40 mile trip into downtown Houston. Necessity being the mother of invention, the style of such dumps quickly settled down into the format that I mentioned. Since it was the equivalent of Euphoria's Ex.err, it also included register dumps and calling traces. A stack dump would be the equivalent on the Intel and most other processors and PC OS's. My perspective on what you have written was from the viewpoint of one who has had and used such tools as much as anyone that I can imagine. The only tool that was close to what I have been proposing to you was a little afterthought editor attached to a DOS menu and command product. A thing called AutoMaxx had a direct hex editor that was very fast and very powerful. The basic product that you threw out made me hungry for a tool that I have often missed. Everett L.(Rett) Williams rett at gvtc.com