Awesome binary parsing

A list of generic tools for parsing binary data structures, such as file formats, network protocols or bitstreams.

Parser generators, parsing libraries and frameworks

Kaitai Struct (DSL): declarative language used for describe various binary data structures, laid out in files or in memory
Nom (Rust): Rust parser combinator framework
Hammer (C): bit-oriented parsing library
Construct (Python): library for parsing and building of data structures (binary or textual). Define your data structures in a declarative manner
Spicy (DSL, C/C++, Zeek): a next-generation parser generator for network protocols and file formats
Hachoir (Python): view and edit a binary stream field by field. Long list of parsers for all kinds of formats
RecordFlux: toolset for the formal specification of messages and the generation of verifiable binary parsers and message generators (Ada-inspired).
DataScript Tools (DSL): DataScript is a formal language for modelling binary datatypes, bitstreams or file formats. PDF
Parsifal (OCaml): OCaml-based parsing engine. Paper: A pragmatic solution to the binary parsing problem. Olivier Levillain
Haka (Lua): open source security oriented language which allows to describe protocols and apply security policies on (live) captured traffic
BinData (Ruby): provides a declarative way to read and write structured binary data
Binary-parser (JavaScript): binary parser builder library which enables you to write efficient parsers in a simple & declarative way
Gloss (Clojure): turn complicated byte formats into Clojure data structures and Clojure data structures into compact byte representations
Preon (Java): Bit syntax for Java. A declarative data binding framework for dealing with binary encoded data
attoparsec and attoparsec-binary: (Haskell): fast parser combinator library, aimed particularly at dealing efficiently with network protocols and complicated text/binary file formats
Marpa (C/C++, Perl, Go): libmarpa (C)
Scapy (Python): send, sniff and dissect and forge network packets. Usable interactively or as a library
libtins (C++): crafting, sending, sniffing and interpreting raw network packets
libcrafter (C++): high level library for C++ designed to create and decode network packets
scodec (Scala): Combinator library for working with binary data
Apache Daffodil (Scala/Java, XML Schema): an open-source implementation of DFDL (Data Format Description Language) capable of describing many industry and military standards and parsing into a infoset, which is most commonly represented as either XML or JSON, and writing back to native format.
binarylang (Nim, DSL): extensible Nim DSL for creating binary parsers/encoders in a symmetric fashion
binaryparse (Nim, DSL): In-language DSL for reading and writing binary data supporting all sorts of patterns. Generates an efficient stream based reader and writer for the runtime execution.
FlexT - a DSL and a tool for generating parsers in Delphi.
FormatFuzzer (C++): framework for high-efficiency, high-quality generation and parsing of binary inputs
Deku (Rust): bit-level, symmetric, serialization/deserialization implementations for structs and enums
restruct (Go): library for reading and writing binary data
Mr. Crowbar (Python): Django-esque model framework for reading and writing binary file formats. Includes a suite of command-line tools for visualising and digging through binary data.
jBinary (JavaScript) High-level API for working with binary data.
Wuffs: a memory-safe programming language (and a standard library written in that language) for Wrangling Untrusted File Formats Safely. Wrangling includes parsing, decoding and encoding.
EverParse: a framework for generating verified secure parsers and formatters from domain-specific format specification languages

Stand-alone software

Hex editors with grammars

Synalyze It!
Hexinator
010 Editor
Kiewtai: plugin for the Hiew hex editor that makes the Kaitai parsers available
Hobbits: multi-platform GUI for bit-based analysis, processing, and visualization. Has a Kaitai plugin.
ImHex: A Hex Editor for Reverse Engineers, Programmers and people who value their retinas when working at 3 AM.

Wireshark

Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer that includes dissectors for over two thousand protocols.

TShark: command line version, can easily be called from shell scripts.
Wireshark Generic Dissector: add-on, allows dissection of a protocol based on a text description of the protocol elements
Wireshark Lua: dissectors can be written in Lua (Examples)
pyreshark: plugin providing a simple interface for writing Wireshark dissectors in Python
Sharktools (Python, Matlab): Tools for programmatic parsing of packet captures using Wireshark functionality

Other Stand-alone Software

GNU poke: The extensible editor for structured binary data
Netzob: open source tool for reverse engineering, traffic generation and fuzzing of communication protocols
Cat Karat Packet Builder: packet generation tool that allows to build custom packets for firewall or target testing
radare2 (C, with bindings/pipe for almost all languages): Unix-like reverse engineering framework and commandline tools. See Parsing a fileformat with radare2 and Types.
Veles: open source tool for binary analysis

Research papers

LangSec Platform: Towards a Platform to Compare Binary Parser Generators. Olivier Levillain, Sébastien Naud, Aina Toky Rasoamanana (Video)
Narcissus: Correct-By-Construction Derivation of Decoders and Encoders from Binary Formats. Benjamin Delaware, Sorawit Suriyakarn, Clément Pit-Claudel, Qianchuan Ye, Adam Chlipala
EverParse: Verified Secure Zero-Copy Parsers for Authenticated Message Formats. Tahina Ramananandro et. al.
Nail: A Practical Tool for Parsing and Generating Data Formats. Julian Bangert and Nickolai Zeldovich
Generic packet descriptions: Verified parsing and pretty printing of low-level data. Marcell van Geest, Wouter Swierstra
GAPA: Generic Application-Level Protocol Analyzer and its Language. Nikita Borisov, David J. Brumley, Helen J. Wang, Chuanxiong Guo
PADS/ML: a functional data description language. Y. Mandelbaum, K. Fisher, D. Walker, M. F. Fernandez, and A. Gleyzer.
PacketTypes: P. J. McCann and S. Chandra. Packet types: Abstract specification of network protocol messages.
Zebu: A Language-Based Approach for Improving the Robustness of Network Application Protocol Implementations. Larent Burgy et. al.
Zebra: Improving the Performance of Message Parsers for Embedded Systems. Jigar Solanki et. al.
z2z: Automatic Generation of Network Protocol Gateways. Yerom-David Bromberg, Laurent Reveillere, Julia L. Lawall, Gilles Muller
Yakker: Semantics and Algorithms for Data-dependent Grammars. Trevor Jim, Yitzhak Mandelbaum, David Walker
BinPAC: Superseded by BinPAC++, which is now known as Spicy
FlowSifter: High-Speed Application Protocol Parsing and Extraction for Deep Flow Inspection. Alex X. Liu, Chad R. Meiners, Eric Norige, and Eric Torng
TSN.1: Transfer Syntax Notation One (TSN.1). A formal notation for describing messages in binary protocols
NetPDL: Markup Language that aims to describe Protocols from OSI layer 2 to OSI layer 7
Tupni: Automatic Reverse Engineering of Input Formats. Weidong Cui et. al.
W. Underwood Grammar-Based Specification and Parsing of Binary File Formats. William Underwood

Lists of interesting binary formats

This is obviously rather subjective and definitely not supposed to be a complete list:

Hachoir parser list and source code
Synalyze It! Grammar Page
Nom example parsers
Corkami posters for file formats
Kaitai Struct format library
Catalog of FlexT format specifications. A scraper for them. In a e-mail conversation the author of the tool has claimed that the grammars are available under a MIT license. A CoCo/R-like grammar for the DSL also exists, but is in a bit unfinished state.
Scapy protocols: layers, contrib
Wikipedia List of file formats

dloss/binary-parsing

dloss

Reviews

Repository Details