I too have been working in this space for a while. Then I found out about kaitai stuct, lost some steam but regrouped. I do have some novel ideas and my dsl is less verbose than theirs :)
I am also working on a project in this space. It is a template format for binary data, and accompanying commandline tooling. It is usable today for tasks such as:
- generating structured binary diffs
- creating universal extractors, several custom game formats are covered already
It is in a early stage but would love some feedback!
Is there allowance for file formats whose contents are dynamic, based on the values present in other parts of the file?
For instance "if value at offset X is 123, then treat this other block of data as format ABC, otherwise treat it as as DEF". Obviously can get complex. The Adobe PSD format does horrible things like this all over the place (:
Not wanting to derail your work but you could take a look at the pattern language here for inspiration. Seems as if it has the same goal https://docs.werwolv.net/pattern-language/
Was there anything in particular you wanted to bring to my attention about the ImHex pattern language?
From a quick glance it looks similar indeed, with the same basic building blocks as feng (data types and structs), while they use a rust inspired format, and I use yaml format (however I also use the rust-inspired data type naming u8, u16, s16 and so on).
A major difference is that feng strives to be usable with minimal/no programming (a custom dsl was developed around this idea), while the ImHex pattern language does look rather classic programming focused data processing (like 010 templates but more pretty syntax)
> This entire genre of tools has been a long time point of interest for me.
Same for me! It turned into a long journey and I am working on a solution that I am very happy about.
Somewhere mid-journey I learned about kaitai struct and lost a bit of steam seeing it was similar. But I think my offering is superior in a more simple template format with less programming required and a nice cli app.
I am yet to announce it publicly, but i been meaning to for so long already.
If you would like to check it out I would be happy!
You can use it to map / view content from a format there is a template for. Alot of common formats is already included and you can extend it using your own templates.
As someone who had a great time with Kaitai, may I suggest that you write an interface so that fq can be used with any format that Kaitai understands (and any that people add in future)
> About a central database of binary parsers, I've been wanting this for ages too. The closest I ever found was augeas, but that's for configuration files.
I'm working on something, that is a open template format for binary file formats. It is usable today as a universal file extractor, with some bugs and limitations.
I'm working on something, that is a open template format for binary file formats. It is usable today as a universal file extractor, with some bugs and limitations.
EDIT: i realized i answered about btsync while question was about syncthing, sorry.
Regarding detecting file modifications: my friend had issues with his synology diskstation eating 100% cpu with btsync with around 50k files. With less files it was down to 20%. We never debugged it properly but it may be polling issues, but it could also have been out of ram-swapping issues (512MB ram was not enough).
Dropbox actually have a "Sync over LAN" checkbox. It just never seem to been implemented/enabled.
I actually just dropped Dropbox for btsync the other week and are very happy, it's iOS app even serves other clients with files over LAN.
Btsync however uses quite crappy crypto and is closed source etc etc.
Syncthing mentions they use TLS encryption, hopefully i can roll my own 8k keys.
I tried Sparkleshare last year aswell, but my experience was mixed. Also it relies on quite a different architecture (git) than a "versioning bittorrent protocol".
Looking forward to evaluating syncthing when time permits.
The last few times I've set up a new machine locally I've used Dropbox to pull over stuff. It usually moves at 40-50 MB/s (megabytes) which is certainly using my gigabit LAN.
Confirmed by [2], that Dropbox LAN sync indeed only works once the file reached their servers.
"Well, when you add a file to your computer's Dropbox, the file is then synced with Dropbox servers. Dropbox will then initiate the syncing process as soon as it determines a change has been made to the file. All linked computers and shared folders will then download any new version of the file. With LAN syncing, Dropbox will look for the new file on your Local Area Network first, bypassing the need to download the file from Dropbox servers, thus speeding up the syncing process considerably."
gives It's a child in a candy, but if you then manually add a period to the end of the sentence, you'll get, Designers in the film which, unlike in the United States.
I too have been working in this space for a while. Then I found out about kaitai stuct, lost some steam but regrouped. I do have some novel ideas and my dsl is less verbose than theirs :)
I have a DSL in go with cli tooling at https://github.com/martinlindhe/feng/