Kaitai Struct IDE

Highly experimental!

A proof-of-concept IDE-style interface for Kaitai Struct.

How to use

1. Run the project
2. Click "Browse" on the right side an open a binary file. You will see a hex representation of the file open in the right panel.
3. Do the same on the left panel with your KSY file or simply start typing your KSY spec in the left panel.
4. Clicking amongst the hex values in the right panel will populate the values in the table at the bottom. This is useful for exploring potential data types in a format you're not familiar with.

An example of the hex dump from the previous screenshot:

0000:  10 00 00 00                                     | len1: 16
                   42 00 00 00                         | block1.number1: 66
                               43 00 00 00             | block1.number2: 67
                                           FF FF FF FF | [             .... ]
0001:  FF FF FF FF                                     | [ ....             ]
                   08 00 00 00                         | len2: 8
                               44 00 00 00             | block2.number1: 68
                                           45 00 00 00 | block2.number2: 69
0002:  EE 00 00 00                                     | finisher: 238

The first four numbers are the line number in hexadecimal. Each line is 16 bytes in length. A line that contains multiple variables will be printed across multiple lines so each value can be printed on the right.

The values printed on the right are in respect to the root object. The first value, len1, is owned by the root object. The second value, block1.number1 is the value of number1 in the root's block1 object.

Values in [ brackets ] were skipped and are not part of any evaluated value.

Code structure

• io.kaitai.struct
  • runtime: A dynamic Kaitai interpreting runtime written in Java.
    • conditionals: if tests and repeat specs
    • expressions: Dynamic expression evaluator (note: some expression types are still not implemented)
    • results: values that store results
    • types: native and user-defined Kaitai data types
  • visualizer: The UI part of the project
    • ui: UI controls and hex printing utilities
    • Editor: The main UI dialog of the IDE
  • KaitaiStream.java: Slightly modified version of the Java runtime's stream

Disclaimers

1. I'm a terrible Java developer. Forgive me. I don't know how to use package managers either...
2. Some of this would be better off in Scala. I couldn't work out how to get sbt working so I gave up and used Java instead.
3. Many important IDE functions are still missing! You can open files and you can type KSY specs, but that's it. You can't even save anything yet. It's usable, but to save your work, copy the results into some other editor and save it there. This thing may crash sometimes so do that often or you might lose your work.
4. I made this project because I thought writing a dynamic runtime would be fun. It was! I didn't really think any further ahead than that, but if this can be useful to anybody, it'd be really cool.
5. The interface is designed for me, I don't know if it's good for others or not. It's partly inspired by the interface of 010 editor, where you can edit a binary template in one panel and poke around the binary in the other side. The general idea is that the data is printed right next to the binary, not in a separate abstract tree or anything. I think that having the values printed next to the hex dump is a very natural way to work when reverse engineering an unknown binary structure. It might be a little odd but I think it works really well. Maybe if this project evolves, it could also have the more traditional hex dump and the abstract tree of values as a different view option.