Binary Lunar OBjects library

This is a simple helper utility for parsing binary data in Lua.

Blob is primarily a wrapper around a struct unpack function, spiced up with some quality of life improvements:

• No need to keep track of your reading offset
• Dealing with padding becomes a breeze
• Define custom types to not repeat yourself
• Handle uncertainty about what to expect by rolling back changes and putting down markers

It preferably uses the string.unpack function introduced in Lua 5.3, but can also use Roberto Ierusalimschy's struct library (http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~roberto/struct/) as a fall-back for Lua 5.1 and 5.2.

Quick tour

Blob is designed to help you write sane code for parsing binary data, but does not try to hide details where precision is necessary. You will still need to specify things like endianness and the way in which Strings are represented, but Blob tries to take care of all the tedious bits.

Next we will have a look at my-file.bin, a made-up piece of binary data that we will parse in this example:

-- [[ my-file.bin
    (offset)  (                     data                     )  (      ASCII     )
    00000000  42 4c 4f 42 71 00 41 55  54 48 67 75 79 40 68 6f  |BLOBq.AUTHguy@ho|
    00000010  73 74 2e 63 6f 6d 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |st.com..........|
    00000020  03 00 80 d3 20 00 c0 69  e0 3e 76 ac 21 f1 3a d6  |.... ..i.>v.!.:.|
    00000030  c0 3f d6 5b 70 36 eb 2d  e8 3f 0c b5 3a 15 86 5a  |.?.[p6.-.?..:..Z|
    00000040  dd 3f dc 18 a2 e0 6d 0c  e1 3f b6 0d 38 c8 da 06  |.?....m..?..8...|
    00000050  cc 3f 77 2c 30 60 3b 16  a8 3f 85 72 ab 7f 42 b9  |.?w,0`;..?.r..B.|
    00000060  e5 3f 98 79 eb d0 cb bc  e5 3f 02 d2 7b 13 01 e9  |.?.y.....?..{...|
    00000070  ed 3f 99 16 31 4c 4c 8b  d8 3f 1e 3e 61 15 0f 9f  |.?..1LL..?.>a...|
    00000080  e0 3f 89 2e 35 a3 44 97  ea 3f df 66 23 88 6f b3  |.?..5.D..?.f#.o.|
    00000090  a1 3f a6 be 36 cc 52 5f  ab 3f 0a                 |.?..6.R_.?.|
    0000009b
]]
local Blob = require("Blob")

-- load the content of a binary file
local blob = Blob.load("my-file.bin")

-- The first four bytes should contain the string "BLOB"
assert(blob:bytes(4) == "BLOB")

-- This is followed by the version, stored as a 2 byte unsigned integer
local version = blob:unpack("I2")

local author
if version >= 110 then
    -- Since version 1.1 of this file format, there might be a field tagged
    -- "AUTH", followed by the email-address of the author.
    if blob:bytes(4) == "AUTH" then
        -- the author's email address is a zero-terminated String
        author = blob:zerostring()
    else
        -- there was no author field, so we want to go back to where we left off
        -- before we checked the four bytes
        blob:rollback()
    end
end

-- We want to skip padding bytes to the next 16 byte boundary
blob:pad(16)

-- Create a custom type that can parse 2D or 3D vectors
blob.types.vector = function(dimensions)
    -- The vector has one double value per dimension
    return string.rep("d", dimensions)
end

-- Parse a list of pairs of 2D coordinates and a three-dimensional color vector.
-- The number of elements is stored as a two byte unsigned integer
local count = blob:unpack("I2")

-- Now parse the list
local list = blob:array(count, function(blob)
    return {
        -- The format string in `vector` captures multiple values at once.
        -- By surrounding the call with curly braces, we make sure that all
        -- captured values are stored in `pos` and `color`.
        pos = {blob:vector(2)},
        color = {blob:vector(3)},
        -- The elements are word-aligned.
        blob:pad("word"),
    }
end)

Usage

Instantiating

• local blob = Blob.new(string) creates a new instance from a binary string. You can safely use multiple blobs in parallel.

• local blob = Blob.load(filename) creates a new instance from the content of a file

• local blob = other_blob:split(length) branch off a shallow copy of the other_blob. The new copy will have its initial reading position at the current reading position of other_blob. The underlying binary data will not be copied, but the reading position and markers of the two blobs are independent once the new blob is created. If a length is given, then the other_blob will be advanced by that many bytes.

  This function is useful in cases where you want to keep an explicit reference to a portion of the blob.

Parsing

• blob:unpack(formatstring) unpacks a bunch of bytes according to the given format string, and advance the offset by the number of consumed bytes. See http://www.lua.org/manual/5.3/manual.html#6.4.2 for valid format strings, or http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~roberto/struct/ if you are using Lua 5.1 or 5.2.
• blob:unpack(formatstring, ...) calls string.format(formatstring, ...) and uses the resulting formatstring to unpack bytes. This is useful for generating format strings on the fly, without having to write the string.format boilerplate code every time. Example:

    -- Check how many bytes of data are available to read
    local bytes = blob:unpack("I2")
    -- Read that many bytes
    local data = blob:unpack("c%d", bytes)

Both variants of blob:unpack can be used with format strings that capture multiple values (e.g. "c8I4"). In these cases, the calls will return all those values. They can be captured in various ways:

    -- assign the captured values to individual variables
    local r, g, b, a = blob:unpack("BBBB")
    -- store all captured values in a table
    local coords = {blob:unpack("dd")}

Arrays

• blob:array(count, fun) Parse a list of count elements by repeatedly parsing the blob using fun. The passed function should accept a blob and return whatever it parsed. See the tour above for an example.
• blob:array(count, formatstring) Parse a list of count elements by repeatedly unpacking data with formatstring.
• blob:array(count, formatstring, ...) Apply string formatting with string.format(formatstring, ...), then parse a list of count elements by repeatedly unpacking data with formatstring.

Bits

• blob:bits(numbits) Parse a number of bits from the beginning of the next byte(s) (that is, the most-significant bit of the next byte will be parsed first). All numbits will be returned as boolean values.

  This also works for more than eight bits at once, and advances the offset by the minimum number of bytes that are necessary to capture all bits (e.g. reading 12 bits will advance the offset by two bytes). Thus, each call of bits will advance the offset by at least one byte.

  Example:

    --[[
        Datagram:
        00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 bit
        |-  flags   -| 00 00 00
    ]]

    -- Capture 5 bits from the beginning of a byte
    local f1, f2, f3, f4, f5 =  blob:bits(5)

• blob:bits(numbits, offset) Similar to the previous function, but skip offset bits first, and then starts capturing numbits bits from most to least significant.

  Example:

    --[[
        Datagram:
        00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 bit
        |-    padding     -| |- flags -|
    ]]

    -- Capture 4 bits after skipping 7 padding pits on the left
    local f1, f2, f3, f4 =  blob:bits(4, 7)

Size

• blob:size(formatstring) returns the size of the given format string. This function does not work for format strings containing zero-terminated or size-prefixed strings.
• blob:size(formatstring, ...) similar to the simple size call, but does in-place string formatting with string.format(formatstring, ...) and calculates the size of the resulting string.

Offset

If you need to change the offset manually, use blob:seek(pos) to move to a certain position. You can also directly read or write blob.pos, which contains the current offset.

The offset is handled in Lua's 1-based indexing, so that the very first byte is at offset 1.

Custom types

The module Blob contains an array types where custom types are stored. These custom types are stored either as a valid formatting string for simple cases, or as a function, for more complex cases. The default types are:

Blob.types = {
  byte = "c1",
  bytes = function(count)
    return string.format("c%d", count)
  end,
  word = "c2",
  dword = "c4",
  zerostring = lib.zerostring, -- see Pitfalls
  prefixstring = lib.prefixstring, -- see Pitfalls
}

These types can be used for parsing: If mytype is defined in Blob.types, then you can use blob:mytype() as a method on a blob to generate a format string. blob:word() is equivalent to blob:unpack("c2"), and blob:bytes(i) is equivalent to blob:unpack("c%d", i).

If mytype is a function, then this function should return a valid format string. If mytype requires arguments, you can specify them when calling the corresponding method: blob:mytype(a, b) will call mytype(a, b), and use the returned formatstring to unpack data.

Custom types can also be used for padding (see below).

Custom types are always shared between instances, no matter if they are stored in blob.types or Blob.types.

Use custom types in size or array like so:

    local s1 = blob:size(Blob.types.bytes(16))
    local s2 = blob:size(Blob.types.dword)
    local list = blob:array(10, Blob.types.bytes(4))

Rollback and Markers

If you parsed some data but then realize that you advanced too far, you can return to the previous position with blob:rollback(). This will put the reading position back to where it was before the most recent unpack or comparable function was called.

By default, up to 64 of these rollback points are saved before old ones are overridden. You can change this limit by changing Blob.max_rollbacks.

You can also use markers to easily navigate between special positions in the blob.

• blob:mark() creates an anonymous marker and pushes it to a stack.
• blob:restore() removes the topmost anonymous marker from the stack, and moves the reading position to that marker
• blob:drop() removes the tompost anonymous marker from the stack

Use named markers if the stack isn't enough

• blob:mark(name) creates a marker named name
• blob:restore(name) moves the reading position to the marker called name
• blob:drop() removes the marker called name

Padding

Use blob:pad(size, position) to skip padding bytes in various ways.

Here, size can be:

• either a size specified in bytes,
• a formatting string (e.g. "I4"), or
• a custom type, defined in Blob.types.

The position is optional, and can be one of the following:

• a numeric value that defines the position relative to which padding should be applied,
• the string "absolute", to simply skip a fixed number of padding bytes, or
• a string that refers to a marker, in which case padding will be aligned relative to the position of that marker.

If no position is given, then padding is applied relative to the start of the blob.

Examples

• You have finished reading the options field of a TCP packet and want to skip to the data field, which starts at the next multiple of 4 bytes:

    -- Your current position is 23 (using Lua's indexing). The next byte after
    -- a 4 byte boundary is at index 25.
    print(blob.pos) -- 23
    -- Apply padding to dword boundary ("dword" is a double-word, or 4 bytes)
    blob:pad("dword")
    -- This skipped two bytes, as expected
    print(blob.pos) -- 25

• You want to skip padding bytes equivalent to the size of a somewhat complex struct:

    blob:pad("c16I4I4I4")

• You want to skip to the next boundary of 1024 bytes, but the padding is not aligned to the beginning of the blob, but to some other position:

    blob:pad(1024, 16)

• The padding does not follow any alignment; it's just a fixed number of bytes:

    blob:pad(32, "absolute")

Pitfalls

Blob will automatically detect whether string.unpack is available. If not, it will try to use struct as a fall-back. However, the APIs of these two libraries are not fully compatible. In particular, the following restrictions apply:

• struct offers the format string "c0", which reads a number of characters equal to the last parsed numeric value. This does not exist in sting.unpack.
• string.unpack offers the format string "s[n]" to unpack a string that is prefixed by an n-byte unsigned integer. This does not exist in struct.
• struct allows the format string "c" to read one character. However this is not a legal format string in string.unpack. The equivalent format string for string.unpack is "c1".
• A zero-terminated string is decoded as "s" in struct, but as "z" in string.unpack.

Blob offers a few workarounds that might help to avoid these problems:

• Use the custom type prefixstring(n) to decode a string that is prefixed by an n-byte unsigned integer. This behaves similar to "s[n]" in string.unpack, and will in some cases be enough to replace "c0" in struct.
• Always specify the number of characters in the format string "c", but make sure that this number is never 0.
• Use the custom type zerostring() to decode a zero-terminated string. This will automatically use either "z" or "s", depending on which library is used.

The string Blob.backend exposes which library is used internally. It contains "lua" when Blob uses the string functions of Lua 5.3, and "struct" when Blob uses the struct library.

Example: Parsing RIFF

Here is how you could parse a generic RIFF file with Blob:

local Blob = require("Blob")

-- define type for four-character codes
Blob.types.fourcc = "c4"

local function parse_chunk(blob)
    local chunk = {}
    chunk.id = blob:fourcc()
    chunk.size = blob:unpack("I4")
    -- Both RIFF and LIST chunks contain a four character type
    if chunk.id == "RIFF" or chunk.id == "LIST" then
        chunk.form_type = blob:fourcc()
        chunk.nested = {}
        local begin = blob.pos
        while blob.pos < begin + chunk.size do
          table.insert(chunk.nested, parse_chunk(blob))
        end
    else
        chunk.content = blob:split(chunk.size) -- split off a blob of `size` bytes
        blob:pad("word") -- Skip padding to the next word boundary
    end
    return chunk
end

local function parse_riff(blob)
    local riff = parse_chunk(blob)
    assert(riff.id == "RIFF")
    return riff
end

-- Create a new Blob with the content of the file
local blob = Blob.load("some-file.riff")
local riff = parse_riff(blob)

TODO

• stateful endianness