Binary Markup Language

Binary Markup Language (BML) is a XML scheme for describing structured binary data. The library contains a protocol parser, a binary data parser, as well as a c header emitter.

Usage

In its current iteration, BML is simply an Odin package. It does not currently support an FFI friendly interface.

Parsing a BML Scheme

import "bml/protocol"

...

foo :: proc() 
{
    prot, prot_ok := protocol.parse("foo.xml")
}

Parsing a Binary File

import "bml/protocol"
import "bml/parser"

...

foo :: proc()
{
    // Either of these three are possible

    // 1. parse from protocol and file path
    prot, prot_ok := protocol.parse("foo.xml")
    content, content_ok := parser.parse_from_protocol(&prot, "foo.bin")

    // 2. parse from scheme and file path
    content, content_ok := parser.parse_from_file("foo.xml", "foo.bin")

    // 3. parse from protocol and binary data
    prot, prot_ok := protocol.parse("foo.xml")
    data := os.read_entire_file_from_filename("foo.bin")
    content, content_ok := parser.parse_data(&prot, data)
}

Emitting C header

import "bml/protocol"
import "bml/emitter"

...

foo :: proc()
{
    prot, prot_ok := protocol.parse("foo.xml")
    c_header := emitter.emit_c(&prot)
}

BML Grammar

The overall structure of a BML protocol consists of a series of custom types, a series of IDs and a packet definition. The packet definition describes the actual payload.

For examples, look in the demos folder.

Packet Definition

The packet definition consists of a marker, a header as well as a body.

Marker

Name

marker

Attributes

• [required] type: BaseType
• [optional] length: int
• [optional] size: int

Value

Comma-separated list of values. May be provided in different bases using the following prefixes:

• Hexadecimal: 0x
• Binary: 0b
• Octal: 0o

Header

Name

header

Attributes

None

Value

List of fields in header

Body

Name

body

Attributes

None

Value

List of fields in body

Base types

Type	Size
u8	1
i8	1
u16	2
i16	2
u32	4
i32	4
u64	8
i64	8
f16	2
f32	4
f64	8

ID

IDs correlate an integer value to set of fields. A field can be dependant on another field, the type of which should be an ID.

Name

id

Attributes

• [required] name: string
• [required] type: BaseType

Value

List of entries

Custom Type

Custom Types come in two flavors: type aliases and field lists.

Name

type

Attributes

• [required] name: string
• [optional] type: BaseType

Value

List of fields

Entry

Name

entry

Attributes

• [required] name: string
• [required] value: int

Field

Name

field

Attributes

• [required] name: string
• [optional] type: BaseType | CustomType | ID
• [optional] dependsOn: Name of Field
• [optional] size: int
• [optional] length: int