xxdiff

About

xxdiff and xxdd are simple utilities which make distributing and applying binary patches easy and convenient.

See also bsdiff and bspatch as well as IPS

Usage

When you're ready to distribute your patch, run xxdiff to produce an xxdiff.

$ xxdiff oldfile newfile
--- oldfile 2020-05-14 02:19:46.000000000 +0000
+++ newfile 2020-05-14 02:19:46.000000000 +0000
@@ -2159,7 +2159,7 @@
 000086e0: 1b48 3b5d d075 1544 89f0 4881 c408 0c00  .H;].u.D..H.....
 000086f0: 005b 415c 415d 415e 415f 5dc3 e81f 090f  .[A\A]A^A_].....
 00008700: 0066 6666 6666 662e 0f1f 8400 0000 0000  .ffffff.........
-00008710: 5548 89e5 8a87 0210 0000 5dc3 9090 9090  UH........].....
+00008710: 9090 9090 9090 9090 9090 90c3 9090 9090  ................
 00008720: 5548 89e5 e8a3 0b0f 0031 c05d c30f 1f00  UH.......1.]....
 00008730: 5548 89e5 4157 4156 5348 83ec 3849 89fe  UH..AWAVSH..8I..
 00008740: 48c7 45e0 0000 0000 bb01 0000 0049 837e  H.E..........I.~
@@ -11941,7 +11941,7 @@
 0002ea40: ff4c 89ff e807 46ff ff4c 89ff e89f f9fe  .L....F..L......
 0002ea50: ff4c 89ff e867 01ff ff4c 89ff e8df 16ff  .L...g...L......
 0002ea60: ff4c 89ff e847 54ff ff49 8d9f 8015 0000  .L...GT..I......
-0002ea70: 4889 dfe8 989c fdff 84c0 0f84 9e0f 0000  H...............
+0002ea70: 4889 dfe8 989c fdff 84c0 9090 9090 9090  H...............
 0002ea80: 488d 3d86 fa0c 00be 0100 0000 e8af b40b  H.=.............
 0002ea90: 0084 c00f 8464 0100 0041 c687 de62 0300  .....d...A...b..
 0002eaa0: 0141 c687 7343 0300 0048 8d3d 62fa 0c00  .A..sC...H.=b...
@@ -12382,9 +12382,9 @@
 000305d0: 0001 4180 bc24 5015 0000 0074 1d41 c684  ..A..$P....t.A..
 000305e0: 2403 6303 0001 4c89 e7e8 02d9 feff 488d  $.c...L.......H.
 000305f0: 3df3 b60c 00e8 c65f 0800 498d bc24 8015  =......_..I..$..
-00030600: 0000 e809 81fd ff84 c074 0a4c 89e7 e89d  .........t.L....
+00030600: 0000 e809 81fd ff84 c090 904c 89e7 e89d  ...........L....
 00030610: e3ff ffeb 1d41 c684 2402 6303 0001 4c89  .....A..$.c...L.
-00030620: e7e8 6ad9 feff 488d 3d13 b90c 00e8 8e5f  ..j...H.=......_
+00030620: e790 9090 9090 9090 9090 9090 90e8 8e5f  ..............._
 00030630: 0800 4180 bc24 fb62 0300 000f 84a9 0200  ..A..$.b........
 00030640: 004d 8dbc 24a8 2d00 0048 8dbd b8f7 ffff  .M..$.-..H......
 00030650: 4c89 fee8 628c 0c00 0f57 c00f 2985 a0f7  L...b....W..)...

You can stop here and share this file as-is or you can pipe the output to xxdd which will output a compact shell script fragment capable of applying the xxdiff on most Linux distributions (like Debian or Ubuntu) or macOS.

$ xxdiff oldfile newfile | xxdd
base64 -d <<< 'H4sIAGYAv14C/z3QSwrCMBCA4asM1tLWhSSpfWpu4qZpEwnWRGotgnh3ic509X8Qm
Bli/AR21jewDuqKs7ZhoRwrsDn2gC2wJbbC1tgG24UK3VUrFKEnDARNMAE5K1lD6BCCEwQhJxwIBaEkV
ISaQJPFOlkRwmFHGDwMA6iH5ND7p5t/dYt0fp6eroeH1le5TVNeRtt3+MG43X2yDKyRp/Q+WTcbiBVsz
q//c7RrP5sMvJGJGfVLLfuFs6LZ+8lerOvGJKx0+gvJtx2VkAEAAA==' | gunzip | bash

The shell script fragment is a compact version of src/map-apply.sh which can be used for testing.

Improvements

In the future, a xxdiff -a|--apply <xxdiff> <outfile> may also be supported in addition to checksum verification.

Installation

WIP

make install

Contributing

Dev Environment setup

WIP

Dependencies

pipenv \
    install \
        --dev
        --ignore-pipfile

Pre-commit hooks

pre-commit autoupdate
pre-commit install

Running tests

WIP

make test

License

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC version 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ © 2020, Josh Enders. Some Rights Reserved.