Displaying data in hex format

admkrk

I have seen similar questions asked many times, but they usually referred to reading or writing files. My ultimate goal is to basically create an assembler IDE for programming EEPROMs. I have done something similar to all the parts except creating a hex viewer/editor. In general, I have difficulty dealing text, or I should say picking formats to use.

For my tests I am using a .hex file created in Atmel Studio, but I assume a .ith file from NASM will be the same. No matter what I try, it seems I cam only get the ASCII value to print.

My latest attempt:

void MainWindow::openHexFile(QString file)
{
    QFile f(file);
    char fileData;
    QByteArray data;
    if(!f.open(QIODevice::ReadOnly))
    {
        return;
    }

    while(!f.atEnd())
    {
        f.read(&fileData, sizeof (char));
        data.append(fileData).toHex();
    }
    ui->hexEdit->insertPlainText(data);
}

Produces the ASCII just fine:

:1000000014C01BC01AC019C018C017C016C026C023
:1000100014C013C012C011C010C00FC00EC00DC05C
:100020000CC00BC00AC009C008C011241FBECFE518
:10003000D1E0DEBFCDBF09D026C0E2CF12B883E346
:1000400089B98AB188698AB90895F89480E886BD2B
:1000500016BC7894F3DFB89AC098FFCF1F920F9226
:100060000FB60F9211248F938CB1813619F082361E
:1000700019F003C0C09A01C0C0988F910F900FBEB5
:0A0080000F901F901895F894FFCF21
:00000001FF

That is not hex though. I am sure it is something very simple that I am missing, but...

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Christian Ehrlicher

@admkrk said in Displaying data in hex format:

data.append(fileData).toHex();

What do you think happens here? Take a look at the documentation: https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qbytearray.html#toHex

admkrk

OK, I am getting confused on the formats. What I was calling ASCII is the character. What I expected to happen is I would get the hex representation of it. In other words I expected to get something like:
3A31303030...
instead of:
:1000...

It looks like I am completely not understanding how I should go about this.

Christian Ehrlicher

You did not took a look at the documentation I pointed you to - toHex() returns a new QByteArray, it does not modify the current object: "Returns a hex encoded copy of the byte array. "

mpergand

It seems that what you want to do is some sort of HEX DUMP :

Here my code:

if(data[0] EQ (char)0xF0)
               {
               int add=0;      // address of the line
               int rows=data.length()/16;  // number of lines
               if(data.length()%16) rows++;

               for(int i=0; i<rows; i++)
                   {
                   VariantList dump;

                   dump<<"";   // 
                   QByteArray line=data.mid(16*i,16);
                   QString hex,ascii=" ";

                   // 16 data by line
                   for(int b=0;b<line.length();b++)
                       {
                       uint8_t c=uint8_t(line.at(b));
                       hex+=QString::asprintf("%02X ", c); // hex

                       if( (c<32) OR (c>=127) ) c='.';
                       ascii+=QString::asprintf("%c", c);  // ascii
                       }

                   while(hex.size()<48) hex.append(' ');
                   dump<<QString::asprintf("%04X  ", add)+hex+ascii;  // address
                   item->addChildWithData(dump);
                   add+=16;
                   }
               }
           }

As you can see i'm using asprintf to convert the data into the different formats. Very handy.

admkrk

@christian-ehrlicher said in Displaying data in hex format:

You did not took a look at the documentation I pointed you to - toHex() returns a new QByteArray, it does not modify the current object: "Returns a hex encoded copy of the byte array. "

I did look, but missed the part about a copy.

@mpergand said in Displaying data in hex format:

It seems that what you want to do is some sort of HEX DUMP :

Yes, that is pretty much what I am looking do.

Thank you both, if I can ever get a good nights sleep I should be able to figure something out.

admkrk

Amazing how some rest can clear your head. I discovered I needed to switch to reading a binary file and between the rest and looking at it from a different angle, it just came out right. I still have a long way to go, but at least the basic part is working now.

void MainWindow::openHexFile(QString file)
{
    QFile f(file);
    QByteArray data;
    if(!f.open(QIODevice::ReadOnly))
    {
        qDebug() << "Error opening file.";
        return;
    }

    while(!f.atEnd())
    {
        data = f.readLine().toHex();

        for(int i = 0; i < data.size(); i++)
        {
            QChar temp = data.at(i);
            ui->hexEdit->insertPlainText(temp);
            if(i % 2)
                ui->hexEdit->insertPlainText(" ");
        }
    }
}

Thanks again guys.