C++ How-To: Print a Buffer
August 1st, 2009I was recently writing a command line application in C++ that parses raw binary. I thought it would be really nice to be able to print different parts of memory to the screen as the program runs. I’ve included well-commented code and a usage example.
1: //needed for printf()
2: #include <stdio.h>
3:
4: //needed for strlen()
5: #include <string.h>
6:
7: // prints the contents of memory in hex and ascii.
8: // starts at the location of the pointer "start"
9: // prints "length" bytes of memory.
10: void Print_Memory(const unsigned char * start, unsigned int length)
11: {
12: //create row, col, and i. Set i to 0
13: int row, col, i = 0;
14:
15: //iterate through the rows, which will be 16 bytes of memory wide
16: for(row = 0; (i + 1) < length; row++)
17: {
18: //print hex representation
19: for(col = 0; col<16; col++)
20: {
21: //calculate the current index
22: i = row*16+col;
23:
24: //divides a row of 16 into two columns of 8
25: if(col==8)
26: printf(" ");
27:
28: //print the hex value if the current index is in range.
29: if(i<length)
30: printf("%02X", start[i]);
31: //print a blank if the current index is past the end
32: else
33: printf(" ");
34:
35: //print a space to keep the values separate
36: printf(" ");
37: }
38:
39: //create a vertial seperator between hex and ascii representations
40: printf(" ");
41:
42: //print ascii representation
43: for(col = 0; col<16; col++)
44: {
45: //calculate the current index
46: i = row*16+col;
47:
48: //divides a row of 16 into two coumns of 8
49: if(col==8)
50: printf(" ");
51:
52: //print the value if it is in range
53: if(i<length)
54: {
55: //print the ascii value if applicable
56: if(start[i]>0x20 && start[i]<0x7F) //A-Z
57: printf("%c", start[i]);
58: //print a period if the value is not printable
59: else
60: printf(".");
61: }
62: //nothing else to print, so break out of this for loop
63: else
64: break;
65: }
66:
67: //create a new row
68: printf("\n");
69: }
70: }
71:
72: // Prints the contents of memory in hex and ascii.
73: // Prints the memory between and including the
74: // two "end1" and "end2" pointers.
75: void Print_Memory(const unsigned char * end1, const unsigned char * end2)
76: {
77: if(end2 >= end1)
78: Print_Memory(end1, end2 - end1 + 1);
79: else
80: Print_Memory(end2, end1 - end2 + 1);
81: }
82:
83: int main(int argc, char **args)
84: {
85: const char start [] = "hi there! You're looking at me in memory!";
86: const char * end = start + (int)strlen(start);
87:
88: Print_Memory((unsigned char *)start, (unsigned char *)end);
89:
90: return 0;
91: }
Code is Poetry
June 18th, 2009I recently ordered a new mug from zazzle.com. “Code is poetry,” it says on one side, with my favorite programming language, C♯, on the other. Code really is poetry, and now let me relate a memory that I thought of on my drive home from work today. (Sorry in advance. This post doesn’t have very much focus.)
RoomieScript demo
April 15th, 2009I gave a presentation for my ENGE 1104 (Exploration of a Digital Future) class about home automation. My team members talked about X10, Z-Wave, ControlThink’s SDK, and some project ideas. I gave a brief overview of a project that I have been working on sporadically for a couple years, Roomie. In doing so, I for created some documentation, so I figured I’d publish some of it here. Here is an example of RoomieScript and it’s execution: 
FRI Version 1.5.0.0 Source Code
June 9th, 2008
I have a friend who is an open-source fiend, and so he nag nag nagged me to make the source code for FRI available for download. After a lot of re-organizing and commenting, here it is! The "Frie" project in the Visual Studio solution is the FRI back-end, stands for "Fantastic ROM Indexer Engine". Yes, it is pronounced "free" just like the front-end. 
I’m putting this code out on the Internet, but please keep in mind that FRI is still my baby. If you want to make a derivative work, email me first for permission.
Download FRI Version 1.5.0.0 Source Code here 
FRI Version 1.4.0.0
April 22nd, 2008
Change Log:
- Fix: emulator compatibility is now caps-insensitive
- Fix: emulator selector centered and has correct icon
- Re-Write: Emulator loader re-written. The emulator selector now looks finished. Note that ROMs can no longer be opened in bulk.
- New Feature: Image Health (good dump, bad dump) can now be searched.
- New Feature: The default size of the Advanced Search window is now just the right size to fit all of the content.
- New Feature: The default size of the Emulator Selector window is not just the right size to fit all of the content.
Here is the Emulator Selector when I select a PlayStation ROM to play. (I don’t have any PlayStation emulator configured to work with FRI, so it just shows all of the emulators.)
Here is the Emulator Selector when I select a Game Boy ROM to play. Since I have more than one Game Boy-compatible emulator configured in FRI, it gives me a choice.
- New Feature: More-detailed status messages in the status bar.
- Tweak: Many improvements to program responsiveness. Previous versions of FRI freeze temporarily when scanning for a large number of new ROMs, or when populating the ROM list when a large number of ROMs. Various tweaks, combined with the new status bar messages, ensure that FRI remains responsive and keep the user in control.
- New Feature: Maximum number of players can now be an implied meaning of a File Tag. This means that if a ROM has "[p1]" in the file name, then FRI will recognize it as a 1-player game. As always, the user can create new tags, so if the user has a lot of ROMs with "(1 player)" denoting that it is a 1-player ROM, then he can easily add that to the File Flag Vocabulary.
- New Feature: FRI now has the ability to randomly-select a ROM in the ROM-list, or (if multiple ROMs are already selected) to randomly-select a ROM out of the selected ROMs.
- New Feature: Now when FRI is closed it only saves the database if changes have been made.
