RHex Feature: File Identification

Written 2011-04-08

I want RHex to be able to look at the current cursor position, and report possible file types assuming that byte is the beginning of a file. To do this, I'm going to use libmagic. libmagic is a library for recognizing magic numbers, much like those often placed at the start of a file as a special marker. For example, FF D8 marks often the start of a JPEG file. When working with different types of archives and binaries the ability to quickly guess at the content of a file embedded within is a very useful feature for a hexeditor.

So I tried to write a simple implementation of the unix command 'file'. I used libmagic, and it only took about 15 lines.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <magic.h>
int main( int numArgs, char * args[] )
{
magic_t m;

m = magic_open( MAGIC_NONE );
magic_load( m, NULL );

printf( "%s", magic_file( m, args[ 1 ] ) );
magic_close( m );
}
Do note not to free the memory. I suspect libfile loads the tables into memory for the time between magic_load() and magic_close(). Also, there is a function, magic_buffer( magic_t, const void * bufptr, size_t bytecnt ) that operates on a byte-array.