OpenEuphoria

Re: Patching distributed EXE's

• Posted by George Henry <ghenryca at lycos.com> Jan 25, 2001
• 537 views

Hi Chris,

I sorta fail to understand.

To keep this real simple, suppose I have a way of compiling text to some binary
format. The purpose of the compilation is irrelevant. Just say that text A
compiles to binary A', text B compiles to binary B', and so on. So suppose I
change my text from content A to content B. Then my compiled binary changes from
A' to B'. So, one way of transforming A' into B' is to change my text A to text B
and then run the compilation process (whatever that is).

Another way of transforming A' to B' is to run a diff on the two files,
producing a list of deltas, (A'->B'). I also have this "batch editor" program
that can take A' and (A'->B') and produce B'. Notice, B' is identical, byte for
byte, bit for bit, regardless of whether I produced it by changing text A to text
B and then compiling B into B', or by running A' and the (A'->B') deltas [i.e.
instructions] through my batch editor.

So if B' is an executable, call it example.exe, it had better execute just as
well regardless of which way it was generated. If B' is the same string of bits,
and let's say I give it the same name and access priveleges or whatever either
way, then it will perform exactly the same set of functions no matter how I
produced it.

Given the (what appears to me to be) unassailable logic of this reasoning, I
don't know what you mean by 'nuances of binary formatting'.

George

--

On Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:11:46
 Chris Bensler wrote:
>Hehe..
>
>  I've tried similar things b4, for learning reasons, but the binaries
>never work afterwards.. I don't know enough about the ins and outs of exe's
>to acheive this.
>  Other than the limitations on compiled binary string sizes, I know
>nothing about it..
>
>  I could write the anylzer and delta progs, but I wouldn't be able to take
>into account binary formatting..
>What if I did the anylzer and delta, and you could work in the nuances that
>the binaries would have to follow?
>
>Chris



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