The World of Computer Software/World_Of_Computer_Software-02-386-Vol-2of3.iso/b/bedit23.zip/BEDIT.DOC

Text File | 1993-02-09 | 23KB | 509 lines

                                    BEDIT
                              Binary File Editor
                                 USER'S GUIDE

                  Copyright 1990, 1993 by Gary C. Crider and
                               Parity Solutions



TABLE OF CONTENTS:

        What is BEDIT? ................................... 1.0
        The BEDIT command line ........................... 2.0
        Operational notes ................................ 3.0
        The Keyboard and Display ......................... 4.0
        Modifying Data ................................... 5.0
        Deleting Data .................................... 6.0
        Inserting Data ................................... 7.0
        Locating Data .................................... 8.0
          Go to a Position in the File ................... 8.1
          Search for Data ................................ 8.2
        Print the File ................................... 9.0
        Save the File .................................... 10.0
        Help ............................................. 11.0
        A Useful Example -
          Modification of DOS 5's EDIT ................... 12.0
        Installation ..................................... Appendix A
        Disclaimer ....................................... Appendix B
        Support .......................................... Appendix C
        Registration ..................................... Appendix D


1.0 What Is BEDIT?

   One thing most of us learned early on after working on our first PC
was that EDLIN, while useful, stank (stunk?) as an editor of text files.
Soon there were hundreds of full screen text editors available everywhere.
Even Microsoft finally came around and included EDIT in DOS 5 to get us
away from EDLIN.

   An early lesson that most who aspire to be power users learn is that not
all changes we desire to make are in text files.  Sooner or later we end
up patching an executable program, database, or strange format file that
text editors will not handle.  Enter DEBUG.  Just as EDLIN was a pain for
editing text files, DEBUG is a pain for editing binary files.  Strangely,
few people have jumped out with binary editors and the few I have seen are
not much better than DEBUG.  Even Microsoft is making us stick with DEBUG,
and as a bonus, have taken the documentation for DEBUG out of the DOS
documentation.  I guess they feel it is too dangerous for ordinary mortals.
My feeling is, it's my file and I'll corrupt it if I want to.

   BEDIT is a very easy-to-use full screen editor for binary (or text)
files.  You simply type over the hex or ASCII data much as you would with
any text editor.  BEDIT ensures that you enter hex characters (0-9 and A-F)
while you are in hex entry mode.  You will be able to see the hex and ASCII
representations at all times whether you are editing in hex or ASCII.

   Using BEDIT is so intuitive, I don't know why I'm writing this documen-
tation or why you are reading it.  Perhaps we both like to move cautiously.

   You see a full screen of data at all times, not just a few bytes.  Paging
through the file is as easy as hitting PgUp and PgDn, you don't have to
enter hex displacements to get to the next page.

   I think you'll find, as we have at a Fortune 100 company (my day job),
that BEDIT becomes one of the handiest tools you have.  You will use it
much more than you now expect that you will.

   BEDIT automatically detects and uses any available LIM 4.0 EMS expanded
memory.  This allows very large files to be edited.



2.0 The BEDIT Command Line

   Format: BEDIT [path]filename [/N]

   The filename is the file name of the file that you want to edit.  BEDIT
does not make an automatic backup, so back it up if you think there could
be problems.  The path is required if the file is not in the current
directory.  Specify /N if you do not want BEDIT to use EMS memory.



3.0 Operational Notes

   It bears repeating at this point that BEDIT DOES NOT MAKE AN AUTOMATIC
BACKUP of the edited file.  Since much of the usefulness of BEDIT is to just
view or print the contents of a binary file, I did not want BEDIT cluttering
up my directories with backup files.

   If you intend to modify a file with BEDIT, I highly recommend making
a backup file first for obvious reasons.  Since BEDIT will allow you to
change any file in any way, it is obviously a very dangerous weapon in the
hands of the unskilled as well as a very powerful tool in the hands of the
skilled.  Please be careful!

   BEDIT reads the entire file into memory before any edits are performed.
All changes are made only to the copy in memory until a SAVE is done.  If
you have LIM 4.0 compatible EMS memory, you are limited in editable file size
to the amount of free expanded memory.  If you have no expanded memory, or
use the /N parameter, the file is loaded into conventional memory.  Depending
on your memory configuration, you should be able to load a file of 400-500
Kbytes without the use of expanded memory.  If your available expanded
memory is less than your available conventional memory, use the /N option
to load larger files.  Usually there is more expanded memory than conven-
tional, so excluding the /N option allows larger files to load.



4.0 The Keyboard and Display

   There are two modes of editing in BEDIT.  When you first load a file, the
screen appears with both hex data and its ASCII representation displayed in
separate sections of the screen.  The cursor is initially placed in the hex
portion of the screen for editing in hex.  The character (represented by two
hex digits) at the cursor location appears red on color monitors.  The same
character on the ASCII (right) side will be light cyan.  All other data
characters are yellow.  As the cursor moves, you will see the light cyan
highlighting on the ASCII display move with the cursor and red letters of the
hex display.  Pressing TAB places the cursor in the ASCII portion and the
display at the cursor becomes red.  The corresponding position in the hex
data becomes light cyan.  TAB toggles the cursor back and forth between the
two editing areas.

   The ASCII display does not display every displayable character, but only
letters and numbers and the more common punctuation symbols that are common
to most printers.  You can only enter these characters on the ASCII side.  To
enter exotic characters you must use the hex representation on the hex side.
Periods are placed in the ASCII display for all non-displayable characters.
If a blank appears, it is because there is a true blank (hex 20) at that
position.

   The following keys function as shown during editing:

   Page Down    - Display the next page of data.
   Page Up      - Display the previous page of data.
   Home         - Position the cursor at the start of the file.
   End          - Position the cursor at the end of the file.
   Down Arrow   - Move the cursor down one line.
   Up Arrow     - Move the cursor up one line.
   Right Arrow  - Move the cursor right one byte.  If at the end of a line,
                  move to the first byte of next line.
   Left Arrow   - Move the cursor left one byte.  If at the start of a line,
                  move to the last byte of the previous line.
   Enter        - Same as right arrow.
   Tab          - Swap the edit cursor between hex and ASCII modes.
   Back Tab     - Clears the byte.  You must then type something in the byte
                  before the cursor can be moved.
   Insert       - Insert one byte.  Everything beyond this byte is shifted one
                  position and a hex 00 byte is inserted at the cursor.
   Delete       - Delete one byte at the cursor.

   Function keys:

   F1     - Display the help screen.
   F2     - Save any changes to the file on disk.
   F3     - Insert a specified number of bytes at cursor.
   F4     - Delete a specified number of bytes at cursor.
   F5     - Move the cursor to a specified address within the file.
   F6     - Print the file to LPT1:.  It appears in basically the same format
            as displayed.
   F7     - Toggle case-sensitivity for ASCII string searches.
   F8     - Specify a search argument and locate the first occurrence of it in
            the file.
   F9     - Locate the next occurrence of the search argument.
   ESCAPE - Exit BEDIT.



5.0 Modifying Data

   Modifying data is very simple, just type over it.  Use the TAB key to
select the hex or ASCII area.  When typing in the hex area, only valid hex
characters, 0-9 and A-F are allowed and upper case is forced.  When entering
data in the ASCII portion, only common printable characters are allowed and
upper or lower case may be used.



6.0 Deleting Data

   First place the cursor on the first byte of the data that you want to
delete.  Pressing the DELETE key deletes one byte of data at this position.
Press DELETE repeatedly to delete several bytes.  If a large block needs to
be deleted, press the F4 key and reply to the prompt with the number of bytes
you want to delete starting with the byte at the cursor.



7.0 Inserting Data

   BEDIT, rather than using an insert mode, lets you insert bytes of binary
zeros, hex 00, into the file.  You can then type over the inserted bytes with
the data that you require.

   Place the cursor at the byte where you want the data inserted.  The data
is inserted BEFORE the byte at the cursor.  Pressing the INSERT key inserts
one byte at a time.  If a large block needs to be inserted, press F3 and
specify the number of bytes you want inserted.  Once the null bytes appear,
type over them if necessary.

   In order to add bytes to the end of the file, press END to go to the last
byte of the file then press the right arrow.  Each press of the right arrow
adds a byte to the file.  To enter a large block at the end of the file,
press the right arrow once, then press F3 and specify the number of bytes
needed less one (since you already added one when you pressed the right
arrow).



8.0 Locating Data

   There are basically three ways to move the cursor to an area you want
to edit.

   First you can use Page Down and Page Up to visually look for that area you
want.  Primitive, but effective.

   Second, if you know the offset into the program of the area you want to
modify, press F5 and type the offset in hex.

   The third method is to let the computer search for a known byte config-
uration.



8.1 Go to a Position in the File

   An offset or displacement is measured from the start of the file.  The
first byte is offset 0, the second is 1, etc.  When you press F5, you are
prompted for an offset which you provide in hex.  The cursor is then placed
at that address and display is updated to show the data at the cursor.

   This method is often used in applying documented patches supplied by a
software vendor.



8.2 Search for Data

   Pressing F8 pops up a dialogue box that requests entry of a search argument.
After supplying this argument, the cursor is positioned to the first
occurrence of that value in the file.  If it is not found, the cursor will
appear on the last byte of the file.  If a first occurrence is found, pressing
F9 searches for the next occurrence.  If a second is found, pressing F9 again
searches for the third occurrence, and so on.

   If the cursor is in the hex editing area, you will be prompted for up to
16 hex bytes of search argument (32 hex digits).  When the cursor is in
the ASCII editing area, you may enter up to 32 ASCII characters for a search
argument.  Admittedly the search arguments are small, but I have found that
when editing binary files, you are generally not looking for long strings.

   Hex data is normally entered in sets of two hex digits (nibbles) since it
takes two hex digits to represent one byte.  If you enter an odd number of hex
digits, a zero nibble is prepended to the argument.  For example, if you
enter 18A, the resulting two bytes that are located are 01 8A.

  No byte swapping is ever done to accommodate the PC's low-high storage
scheme of integer data.  So if you are looking for an integer value of
1000 (decimal), hex 3E8, which is stored as hex E8 03, the search argument
you would provide is E803.  If you don't have a clue what this means, you
probably don't need to be concerned about using BEDIT in this manner.

  The F7 key is used to enable or disable case-sensitive searches when in
ASCII character mode.  The current state is shown on the top line of the
display.  If ON, upper/lower case letters must match exactly.  If OFF,
upper and lower case letters are equivalent.  The CASE mode has no effect
on hex mode searches.



9.0 Print the File

   Printing the file is easy.  You just press F6 and the output is sent to
standard print (PRN).  The format is side-by-side hex/ASCII like that dis-
played on the screen with offset addresses (displacements) at the start of
each line.  896 (hex 380) bytes are printed on each page.  The pages are
numbered and the file name appears at the beginning of each page.



10.0 Saving the File

   Prior to pressing F2 to save the file, all modifications are only done in
memory.  F2 writes the image in memory over the file that was originally
loaded, and the changes become permanent.



11.0 Help

   Pressing F1 pops up a help screen describing the editing and function keys.
Pressing ESCAPE (or any key when last page is displayed) removes the help
window and returns you to the editor.  Page Down and Page Up can be used to
move between help pages.



12.0 A Useful Example - Modification of DOS 5's EDIT

   I prefer DOS 5's EDIT command by leaps and bounds over the EDLIN of
previous DOSes, but there is one thing I especially don't like about it.
When you select File/Open, it comes up with a default file list specification
of *.TXT, like that is the only extension ever used for ASCII text files.  I
would prefer *.* and let me choose from all of my files.  After reviewing
all of the options, it appeared to me that there was no way to set this
value to *.*.

   My next thought is that since there doesn't appear to be any type of
configuration file for EDIT, the *.TXT string must be in the program, so
I'll just pull out my trusty BEDIT and zap it to *.*.  Let's do it.

   Go to your directory where you keep DOS (usually C:\DOS).  Type BEDIT
EDIT.COM.  Since we know we are looking for an ASCII string of *.TXT, press
TAB to swap the cursor to the ASCII area and press F8 to search.  Enter
*.TXT and press ENTER.  You now find that your cursor is positioned on the
last byte of the file.  This means it didn't find the string we were
looking for.  Strange.

   But look! Right above our cursor are some messages that EDIT.COM displays.
One of them reads, "Can not find file QBASIC.EXE."  Oh yeah, I read somewhere
that the EDIT editor with DOS 5 was a version of the QBASIC editor.  Let's
press ESCAPE, answer 'Y' and get back to the DOS prompt.  Now let's enter
BEDIT QBASIC.EXE.

   Again let's go the ASCII area with TAB and search for *.TXT with F8.
Bingo! We found it.  If you are faint-of-heart (wise) you can exit at this
point and make a backup of QBASIC.EXE by copying it to QBASIC.BKP or some
such file name.  The go back in BEDIT of QBASIC.EXE, and repeat the
search to get back to where we were before.

   In my copy of DOS 5.0's QBASIC.EXE, I am now at a displacement of hex
3BCCA into the program and the cursor is positioned on the * of string *.TXT.
Hit the right arrow twice to position the cursor on the first T.  Type an
asterisk (*).  The string now shows *.*XT and the cursor is on the X.
Lets change the X and T to hex 00s, which in most languages is used to
terminate a string.  Since we can't enter a binary zero field in the ASCII
area, press TAB to switch the cursor back to the hex area.  Now type
four 0s.  As you can see you have now changed the XT characters from
hex 54 58 (the hex representation of X and T) to hex 00 00.

   This is what we wanted to do, so now let's save the file by pressing
F2.  Exit to DOS by pressing ESCAPE and Y.  Now type EDIT and go to the
File/Open screen.  Lo and behold!  It now reads *.* and all of the files
in the current directory are displayed in the pick list.

   If you made a backup, you can go delete it now.



APPENDIX A

Installation

    BEDIT is distributed in a ZIP file called BEDIT.ZIP.  It contains the
following files:

        BEDIT.EXE         The executable file for BEDIT.
        BEDIT.DOC         The documentation file.
        BEDIT.Vnn         Modification descriptions for version nn.

    For best results, unzip the file into a directory on your PATH.  If you
don't use a directory in your path, you will have to designate the directory
containing BEDIT.EXE when executing the program.

    If you have a utility directory that is on your PATH, this is an excellent
location for BEDIT.  An example installation would be:

    C:
    CD \UTIL
    COPY [path]BEDIT.ZIP
    PKUNZIP BEDIT
    DEL BEDIT.ZIP

    The PKUNZIP program is by PKWARE, Inc. and is available in many CompuServe
forums under the file name of PKZ110.EXE or PK204E.EXE.  Since you are reading
this doc file, you have obviously already managed to unzip the distribution
file.  If it is not currently in your path, simply copy all of the files to a
directory in your path.  Keep the BEDIT.ZIP file anywhere you like, but give
plenty of copies, as is, to your friends.  If you register BEDIT, you are not
licensed to give your serial number to anybody without first removing the
serialization from your copy.




APPENDIX B


Disclaimer

BECAUSE OF THE DIVERSE NATURE OF COMPUTER EQUIPMENT AND EXPERTISE OF USERS,
PARITY SOLUTIONS AND GARY C. CRIDER MAKE NO WARRANTY ON THE BEDIT PROGRAM
WHATSOEVER, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED.  THE USER ASSUMES ALL RISK OF DAMAGE TO DATA
OR EQUIPMENT RESULTING DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY FROM THE USE OR MISUSE OF THIS
PROGRAM PRODUCT.  THE USER MUST BE AWARE THAT USING BEDIT TO MAKE ALTERATIONS
TO PROGRAMS OR DATA CAN RENDER THAT PROGRAM OR DATA USELESS.

USERS ARE ADVISED TO TEST MODIFICATIONS MADE WITH BEDIT THOROUGHLY ON FILES
FOR WHICH A BACKUP EXITS.  ANY LIABILITY OF THE AUTHOR OR PARITY SOLUTIONS IS
LIMITED TO REPLACEMENT OR REFUND OF THE REGISTRATION FEE.




APPENDIX C


Support

    I have tried to test the program to the fullest, but I am limited as to
systems and configurations with which to test.  I have been programming for 18
years and the one thing I know for sure is that bug free programs are very few
and far between.  I can only promise to support the program to the best of my
ability and provide fixes as expeditiously as possible.  BEDIT has been used
at my home and work site extensively for several years and has proven to be a
reliable tool.

    Anyone can report problems and suggest changes.  Registered users get top
priority in resolving their problems.  There are three ways you can report
problems.  The preferred method is to contact me through CIS mail (not forum
messages).  My CIS ID is 71760,3413.  You can also write me at:

   Gary C. Crider
   Parity Solutions
   1105 Burgess Court
   Arlington, TX 76015

    The last method is to phone [phone].  Since I am the sole technical
support and the line is also used for my network consulting business, it is
often hard to get through to me.  Please call and leave a message between 7:30
am and 5:30 pm Central time.

    No matter which method you use, please give a brief description of your
problem, your registration serial number if you are registered, and your phone
number.  If I need more information, I will contact you as soon as I can.
When I have a solution, I will contact you however you prefer.

    I work full time, have a consulting business to run in my spare time and
write programs instead of sleeping.  So please be a little patient with me.




APPENDIX D


Registration


    I begin with an apology.  I hate programs that in any way inhibit func-
tionality or performance for the shareware version.  But when it came down to
feeding the family and paying the bills, I had a change of heart and inserted
a pesky notice that pops up at the beginning and gets on your nerves.  I
chose this approach above that of limited functionality.  The program's full
capabilities are available for you to evaluate before you invest your hard-
earned money.

    Registered users will receive a unique serial number and instructions on
how to serialize the program.  Serialization can be re-applied to updated
versions and in no way hinders your use of the program.  You can compress or
decompress the program with no effect (LZEXE or PKLITE).  I use Fabrice
Bellard's LZEXE program on BEDIT.EXE before distribution.

    As a registered user, you will be able to update without re-registration
or additional fees.  You will also be kept on my PRIVATE mailing list to
receive additional information on other Parity Solutions products.  Registered
users will be entitled to a discount on any present or future Parity Solutions
software.

    To register your copy, please send $10 ($45 per file server on LANs) check
or money order (sorry, no credit cards yet) to:

   Gary C. Crider
   Parity Solutions
   1105 Burgess Court
   Arlington, TX 76015

    Each license gives you or your company a single use permit for BEDIT. It
is not restricted to a single machine as long as no two users can be simul-
taneously using the program.  As Borland says, "treat it like a book."  As an
example, if you register BEDIT for your home computer, but during the day you
use a portable or a computer at work,  you may keep BEDIT on both machines as
long as no one is at home using it on your home computer.

    LAN licenses grant rights to all users of a file server.  If inter-
networking, a license must exist for each file server that contains a copy
of BEDIT.EXE.  If two or more file servers exist on a single LAN strictly for
mirroring data and fault-tolerance, these will be counted as a single file
server for licensing purposes.  If in doubt, contact me.  We can work out
an agreement.

    Site licensing is also available on a negotiated price basis.  I guarantee
it will be an economical alternative to buying licenses for each user.

    You may freely distribute the original BEDIT.ZIP file in any way you see
fit other than selling it.  Users' groups and shareware distribution services
may charge a reasonable fee for the medium and duplication costs.  Bulletin
boards may not charge additional fees for downloading this specific program,
other than normal connect-time and/or membership charges.

    You are NOT licensed to give anyone your serial number unless you first
remove all serialization from your computer.  You may then no longer use that
serial number.  Only Parity Solutions has the authority to issue serial
numbers.