Portable way to extract string from a binary

mpeppler has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

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Re: Portable way to extract string from a binary by tachyon (Chancellor) on Jul 14, 2004 at 13:12 UTC
`C:\>perl -ne "print $1,$/ while m/([\w ]{2,})/gc" myscript.exe MZ This program cannot be run in DOS mode efx Rich PE RES text rdata data C:\>` [download] Add whatever you want to the character class according to your definition of a string :-) cheers tachyon	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Portable way to extract string from a binary (strings.pl) by tye (Sage) on Jul 14, 2004 at 16:44 UTC
To match strings(1) as I'm used to, you'd want something like: `my( $min, $max ) = ( 4, 321024 ); local( $/ ) = \(321024); my $prev = ''; while( <> ) { $prev .= $_; while( $prev =~ /([\n\t -~]{$min,$max})\0/g ) { print "$1\n"; } $prev =~ s/.*\0//s; }` [download] Though I notice that strings(1) on FreeBSD replaces the "followed by '\0'" with "followed by an unprintable character", which my testing finds to be a disadvantage (at least it should be made optional). - tye	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: Portable way to extract string from a binary (strings.pl) by tachyon (Chancellor) on Jul 15, 2004 at 01:29 UTC
Hmm, while I take your point about looking for null termination the code you present does not work for me. The first issue is this: `C:\>strings.pl myscript.exe Quantifier in {,} bigger than 32766 before HERE mark in regex m/([\n\t + -~]{ << HERE 4,32768})\0/` [download] Read more... (2 kB)	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Portable way to extract string from a binary by jfroebe (Parson) on Jul 14, 2004 at 14:03 UTC
Hi Michael Err... did you check your doc? ;-) `syb_oc_version (string) Returns the identification string of the version of Client Library that this binary is currently using. This is a read-only attribute. For example: troll (7:59AM):348 > perl -MDBI -e '$dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:Sybase:", "sa"); print "$dbh->{syb_oc_version}\n";' Sybase Client-Library/11.1.1/P/Linux Intel/Linux 2.2.5 i586/1/OPT/Mon Jun 7 07:50:21 1999 This is very useful information to have when reporting a problem.` Sorry... I just had to do it... ;-) A little teasing here Jason L. Froebe No one has seen what you have seen, and until that happens, we're all going to think that you're nuts. - Jack O'Neil, Stargate SG-1 Edit by tye, remove PRE tags around long lines	[reply]
Re^2: Portable way to extract string from a binary by mpeppler (Vicar) on Jul 14, 2004 at 14:31 UTC
But that's after the module is built - I need this before...:-) Michael	[reply]
Re^3: Portable way to extract string from a binary by jfroebe (Parson) on Jul 14, 2004 at 14:50 UTC
Lol.. yup, I know, I'm opening a case with Sybase on it. Will let you know what I find. This is what I asked in the case: `basically I'm looking for something like so: $ my_app --openclient-version ---- This application is using OpenClient 12.5.1 ebf 9999 for Linux 64bit. This application was BUILT using OpenClient 12.5.1 ebf 9980. --- The "built" line would be hard coded by the application during the compilation process - I would handle this... The "using" would be read from some method in the openclient library (ctlib or dblib) that my application is using now.` `I'm looking for a way to determine the "using" openclient version without performing a system call to run the ldd or strings commands.` A little more than what we are looking for but, I think it would be a better solution Jason L. Froebe No one has seen what you have seen, and until that happens, we're all going to think that you're nuts. - Jack O'Neil, Stargate SG-1 Edit by tye, remove PRE tags around long lines	[reply]
Re^4: Portable way to extract string from a binary by mpeppler (Vicar) on Jul 14, 2004 at 15:32 UTC
Re^5: Portable way to extract string from a binary by jfroebe (Parson) on Jul 14, 2004 at 15:38 UTC
Some notes below your chosen depth have not been shown here
Re: Portable way to extract string from a binary by ccn (Vicar) on Jul 14, 2004 at 13:11 UTC
You can run sqlsrvr.exe -v and parse it's output to get the version	[reply]
Re^2: Portable way to extract string from a binary by mpeppler (Vicar) on Jul 14, 2004 at 13:24 UTC
Thanks - but that gives me the version of the server - it's the client software version that I need, so the closest approximation would be running isql -v. I think tachyon's solution looks good. Michael	[reply]