how to get hexdump of a structure data

Question

 ....
 finalize(char *hdrs, sendip_data *headers[], int index,
                    sendip_data *data, sendip_data *pack)
 {

 ........

For debugging purposes I want a hex dump of the data and pack structures, which are of type sendip_data, a really complex structure. Actually they contain some binary information so I am not sure whether output of my project is correct or not. So for debugging purposes, I want to write the data into a file so that I can use hexdump as follows -

$hexdump -C file.txt

Also as this is a run time generation of a n/w packet so I am also not sure about the length of data and pack structure which I think fread / fwrite will require ..So please suggest me something.

Answer 1

The following code will give you a hex dump of arbitrary memory from within your code.

#include <stdio.h>

void hexDump (char *desc, void *addr, int len) {
    int i;
    unsigned char buff[17];
    unsigned char *pc = (unsigned char*)addr;

    // Output description if given.
    if (desc != NULL)
        printf ("%s:\n", desc);

    if (len == 0) {
        printf("  ZERO LENGTH\n");
        return;
    }
    if (len < 0) {
        printf("  NEGATIVE LENGTH: %i\n",len);
        return;
    }

    // Process every byte in the data.
    for (i = 0; i < len; i++) {
        // Multiple of 16 means new line (with line offset).

        if ((i % 16) == 0) {
            // Just don't print ASCII for the zeroth line.
            if (i != 0)
                printf ("  %s\n", buff);

            // Output the offset.
            printf ("  %04x ", i);
        }

        // Now the hex code for the specific character.
        printf (" %02x", pc[i]);

        // And store a printable ASCII character for later.
        if ((pc[i] < 0x20) || (pc[i] > 0x7e))
            buff[i % 16] = '.';
        else
            buff[i % 16] = pc[i];
        buff[(i % 16) + 1] = '\0';
    }

    // Pad out last line if not exactly 16 characters.
    while ((i % 16) != 0) {
        printf ("   ");
        i++;
    }

    // And print the final ASCII bit.
    printf ("  %s\n", buff);
}

int main (int argc, char *argv[]) {
    char my_str[] = "a char string greater than 16 chars";
    hexDump ("my_str", &my_str, sizeof (my_str));
    return 0;
}

You pass into hexDump a description, memory address and length, and it will output a hex dump (including character data) for examination. When you run it with the included main, the output is:

my_str:
  0000  61 20 63 68 61 72 20 73 74 72 69 6e 67 20 67 72  a char string gr
  0010  65 61 74 65 72 20 74 68 61 6e 20 31 36 20 63 68  eater than 16 ch
  0020  61 72 73 00                                      ars.

Answer 2

A hex dump for Android, should be suitable for other platforms as well.

LOGD(), same as DLOG(), plays the role of printf() because printf() does not work in Android. For platforms other than Android, you may #define DLOG printf.

dlog.h:

// Android logging
#include <android/log.h>
#define LOGD(...) __android_log_print(ANDROID_LOG_DEBUG  , "~~~~~~", __VA_ARGS__)
#define DLOG(...) __android_log_print(ANDROID_LOG_DEBUG  , "~~~~~~", __VA_ARGS__)
#define LOGE(...) __android_log_print(ANDROID_LOG_ERROR  , "~~~~~~", __VA_ARGS__)
#define ELOG(...) __android_log_print(ANDROID_LOG_ERROR  , "~~~~~~", __VA_ARGS__)

#ifdef __cplusplus
extern "C" {
#endif

void log_dump(const void*addr,int len,int linelen);
void log_dumpf(const char*fmt,const void*addr,int len,int linelen);

#ifdef __cplusplus
}
#endif

dump.cpp:

#include <dlog.h>
//#include <alloca.h>

inline char hdigit(int n){return "0123456789abcdef"[n&0xf];};

#define LEN_LIMIT 8
#define SUBSTITUTE_CHAR '`'

static const char* dumpline(char*dest, int linelen, const char*src, const char*srcend)
{
    if(src>=srcend) {
        return 0;
    }
    int i;
    unsigned long s = (unsigned long)src;
    for(i=0; i<8; i++) {
        dest[i] = hdigit(s>>(28-i*4));
    }
    dest[8] = ' ';
    dest += 9;
    for(i=0; i<linelen/4 ; i++) {
        if(src+i<srcend) {
            dest[i*3] = hdigit(src[i]>>4);
            dest[i*3+1] = hdigit(src[i]);
            dest[i*3+2] = ' ';
            dest[linelen/4*3+i] = src[i] >= ' ' && src[i] < 0x7f ? src[i] : SUBSTITUTE_CHAR;
        }else{
            dest[i*3] = dest[i*3+1] = dest[i*3+2] = dest[linelen/4*3+i] = ' ';
        }
    }
    return src+i;
}

void log_dumpf(const char*fmt,const void*addr,int len,int linelen)
{
#if LEN_LIMIT
    if(len>linelen*LEN_LIMIT) {
        len=linelen*LEN_LIMIT;
    }
#endif
    linelen *= 4;
    static char _buf[4096];
    char*buf = _buf;//(char*)alloca(linelen+1); // alloca() causes the initialization to fail!!!!
    buf[linelen]=0;
    const char*start = (char*)addr;
    const char*cur = start;
    const char*end = start+len;
    while(!!(cur = dumpline(buf,linelen,cur,start+len))){DLOG(fmt,buf);}
}

void log_dump(const void*addr,int len,int linelen)
{
    log_dumpf("%s\n",addr,len,linelen);
}

Usage example:

log_dumpf("args: %s\n", &p, 0x20, 0x10);

Output:

args: 61efadc4 00 3c 17 01 6d bc 59 61 02 00 00 00 80 ae ef 61 `<``m`Ya```````a
args: 61efadd4 00 3c 17 01 00 00 00 00 31 a5 59 61 80 ae ef 61 `<``````1`Ya```a

UPDATE: see dump.cpp and re_dump.h in reDroid (github), it includes a recursive dump that checks if a pointer is valid.