Other than learning C/C++ (which I'm doing), how would one go about reverse engineering file formats?
Reverse Engineering File Formats
- Thread starter YugamiSekai
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Making a file format from scratch is a pain in the arse so most programmers do not, and if they do then they are likely very basic and thus very limited (it is not impossible for a project to devolve into pointless complexity but often times the complexity is there because it is necessary).
C/C++ is good as many things are made by such programmers so when you can read something as a series of shorts and longs or similar it helps. It is not the be all though -- I don't doubt some around here could plough through a ROM hacking session and figure stuff out despite being barely able to make things compile from the command line.
You can try hackmes, though most of those are not file formats as much as a broad spectrum of hacking.
You can try finding out something about a format -- you need not learn everything. Consider say the old binary microsoft word documents, the whole thing with tables and forms and macros and charts and embeddable objects and all that jazz was a long and hard project to reverse engineer, however you could probably figure out how to text is made bold or italic in fairly short order (it is the classic cheat making thing where you take a file, make a small change and then compare to see what goes).
Find a conversion tool and rewrite it. Python has been called the glue that sticks modern computing together and the way it does that is by making interface programs for a lot of things so they can speak to each other.
Alternatively things will be very close to what they appear in the hardware because why not. Learn the hardware things go to. By similar token APIs and database lookups will probably resemble the final form in many cases.
C/C++ is good as many things are made by such programmers so when you can read something as a series of shorts and longs or similar it helps. It is not the be all though -- I don't doubt some around here could plough through a ROM hacking session and figure stuff out despite being barely able to make things compile from the command line.
You can try hackmes, though most of those are not file formats as much as a broad spectrum of hacking.
You can try finding out something about a format -- you need not learn everything. Consider say the old binary microsoft word documents, the whole thing with tables and forms and macros and charts and embeddable objects and all that jazz was a long and hard project to reverse engineer, however you could probably figure out how to text is made bold or italic in fairly short order (it is the classic cheat making thing where you take a file, make a small change and then compare to see what goes).
Find a conversion tool and rewrite it. Python has been called the glue that sticks modern computing together and the way it does that is by making interface programs for a lot of things so they can speak to each other.
Alternatively things will be very close to what they appear in the hardware because why not. Learn the hardware things go to. By similar token APIs and database lookups will probably resemble the final form in many cases.
If you're interested in learning/reverse engineering game file formats I'd recommend visiting this dedicated forum: http://forum.xentax.com/viewforum.php?f=18
The wiki also has some nice guides if i recall correctly.
The wiki also has some nice guides if i recall correctly.
Last edited by Silverthorn,
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