GLib API to convert hexadecimal string to ASCII string? - c

I cannot believe there is no API to do this in GLib, for now I have only found people doing their own conversion, like here and here (function named "decode"). I would really like to find a way to do this in a simple GLib call, but if there is no way, the above methods don't work for me because the former is C++ (I'm using C/GObject) and the latter doesn't seem to work perfectly (I'm having problems with the length of the result).
TIA

As mentioned, this is a bit uncommon. If you have a short enough hex string, you can prefix it with 0x and use strtoll(). But for arbitrary length strings, here is a C function:
char *hex_to_string(const char *input)
{
char a;
size_t i, len;
char *retval = NULL;
if (!input) return NULL;
if((len = strlen(input)) & 1) return NULL;
retval = (char*) malloc(len >> 1);
for ( i = 0; i < len; i ++)
{
a = toupper(input[i]);
if (!isxdigit(a)) break;
if (isdigit(a)) a -= '0';
else a = a - 'A' + '\10';
if (i & 1) retval[i >> 1] |= a;
else retval[i >> 1] = a<<4;
}
if (i < len)
{
free(retval);
retval = NULL;
}
return retval;
}

I'm no 100% sure what you mean by "hexadecimal string" but may be this thread will be of some help.

Related

How to Hash CPU ID in C

I'm trying to short the cpu id of my microcontroller (STM32F1).
The cpu id is composed by 3 word ( 3 x 4 bytes). This is the id string built from the 3 word: 980416578761680031125348904
I found a very useful library that do this.
The library is Hashids and there is a C code.
I try to build a test code on PC with "Code Blocks IDE" and the code works.
But when I move the code into the embedded side (Keil v5 IDE), I get an error on strdup() function: "strdup implicit declaration of function".
The problem is related to the strdup function isn't a standard library function and ins't included into string.h.
I will avoid to replace the strdup function with a custom function (that mimic the behaviour of strdup) to avoid memory leak because strdup copy strings using malloc.
Is there a different approach to compress long numbers?
Thanks for the help!
<---Appendix--->
This is the function that uses the strdup.
/* common init */
struct hashids_t *
hashids_init3(const char *salt, size_t min_hash_length, const char *alphabet)
{
struct hashids_t *result;
unsigned int i, j;
size_t len;
char ch, *p;
hashids_errno = HASHIDS_ERROR_OK;
/* allocate the structure */
result = _hashids_alloc(sizeof(struct hashids_t));
if (HASHIDS_UNLIKELY(!result)) {
hashids_errno = HASHIDS_ERROR_ALLOC;
return NULL;
}
/* allocate enough space for the alphabet and its copies */
len = strlen(alphabet) + 1;
result->alphabet = _hashids_alloc(len);
result->alphabet_copy_1 = _hashids_alloc(len);
result->alphabet_copy_2 = _hashids_alloc(len);
if (HASHIDS_UNLIKELY(!result->alphabet || !result->alphabet_copy_1
|| !result->alphabet_copy_2)) {
hashids_free(result);
hashids_errno = HASHIDS_ERROR_ALLOC;
return NULL;
}
/* extract only the unique characters */
result->alphabet[0] = '\0';
for (i = 0, j = 0; i < len; ++i) {
ch = alphabet[i];
if (!strchr(result->alphabet, ch)) {
result->alphabet[j++] = ch;
}
}
result->alphabet[j] = '\0';
/* store alphabet length */
result->alphabet_length = j;
/* check length and whitespace */
if (result->alphabet_length < HASHIDS_MIN_ALPHABET_LENGTH) {
hashids_free(result);
hashids_errno = HASHIDS_ERROR_ALPHABET_LENGTH;
return NULL;
}
if (strchr(result->alphabet, ' ')) {
hashids_free(result);
hashids_errno = HASHIDS_ERROR_ALPHABET_SPACE;
return NULL;
}
/* copy salt */
result->salt = strdup(salt ? salt : HASHIDS_DEFAULT_SALT);
result->salt_length = (unsigned int) strlen(result->salt);
/* allocate enough space for separators */
result->separators = _hashids_alloc((size_t)
(ceil((float)result->alphabet_length / HASHIDS_SEPARATOR_DIVISOR) + 1));
if (HASHIDS_UNLIKELY(!result->separators)) {
hashids_free(result);
hashids_errno = HASHIDS_ERROR_ALLOC;
return NULL;
}
/* non-alphabet characters cannot be separators */
for (i = 0, j = 0; i < strlen(HASHIDS_DEFAULT_SEPARATORS); ++i) {
ch = HASHIDS_DEFAULT_SEPARATORS[i];
if ((p = strchr(result->alphabet, ch))) {
result->separators[j++] = ch;
/* also remove separators from alphabet */
memmove(p, p + 1,
strlen(result->alphabet) - (p - result->alphabet));
}
}
/* store separators length */
result->separators_count = j;
/* subtract separators count from alphabet length */
result->alphabet_length -= result->separators_count;
/* shuffle the separators */
hashids_shuffle(result->separators, result->separators_count,
result->salt, result->salt_length);
/* check if we have any/enough separators */
if (!result->separators_count
|| (((float)result->alphabet_length / (float)result->separators_count)
> HASHIDS_SEPARATOR_DIVISOR)) {
unsigned int separators_count = (unsigned int)ceil(
(float)result->alphabet_length / HASHIDS_SEPARATOR_DIVISOR);
if (separators_count == 1) {
separators_count = 2;
}
if (separators_count > result->separators_count) {
/* we need more separators - get some from alphabet */
int diff = separators_count - result->separators_count;
strncat(result->separators, result->alphabet, diff);
memmove(result->alphabet, result->alphabet + diff,
result->alphabet_length - diff + 1);
result->separators_count += diff;
result->alphabet_length -= diff;
} else {
/* we have more than enough - truncate */
result->separators[separators_count] = '\0';
result->separators_count = separators_count;
}
}
/* shuffle alphabet */
hashids_shuffle(result->alphabet, result->alphabet_length,
result->salt, result->salt_length);
/* allocate guards */
result->guards_count = (unsigned int) ceil((float)result->alphabet_length
/ HASHIDS_GUARD_DIVISOR);
result->guards = _hashids_alloc(result->guards_count + 1);
if (HASHIDS_UNLIKELY(!result->guards)) {
hashids_free(result);
hashids_errno = HASHIDS_ERROR_ALLOC;
return NULL;
}
if (HASHIDS_UNLIKELY(result->alphabet_length < 3)) {
/* take some from separators */
strncpy(result->guards, result->separators, result->guards_count);
memmove(result->separators, result->separators + result->guards_count,
result->separators_count - result->guards_count + 1);
result->separators_count -= result->guards_count;
} else {
/* take them from alphabet */
strncpy(result->guards, result->alphabet, result->guards_count);
memmove(result->alphabet, result->alphabet + result->guards_count,
result->alphabet_length - result->guards_count + 1);
result->alphabet_length -= result->guards_count;
}
/* set min hash length */
result->min_hash_length = min_hash_length;
/* return result happily */
return result;
}
The true question seems to be
Is there a different approach to compress long numbers?
There are many. They differ in several respects, including which bits of the input contribute to the output, how many inputs map to the same output, and what manner of transformations of the input leave the output unchanged.
As a trivial examples, you can compress the input to a single bit by any of these approaches:
Choose the lowest-order bit of the input
Choose the highest-order bit of the input
The output is always 1
etc
Or you can compress to 7 bits by using using the number of 1 bits in the input as the output.
None of those particular options is likely to be of interest to you, of course.
Perhaps you would be more interested in producing 32-bit outputs for your 96-bit inputs. Do note that in that case on average there will be at least 264 possible inputs that map to each possible output. That depends only on the sizes of input and output, not on any details of the conversion.
For example, suppose that you have
uint32_t *cpuid = ...;
pointing to the hardware CPU ID. You can produce a 32-bit value from it that depends on all the bits of the input simply by doing this:
uint32_t cpuid32 = cpuid[0] ^ cpuid[1] ^ cpuid[2];
Whether that would suit your purpose depends on how you intend to use it.
You can easily implement strdup yourself like this:
char* strdup (const char* str)
{
size_t size = strlen(str);
char* result = malloc(size);
if(result != NULL)
{
memcpy(result, str, size+1);
}
return result;
}
That being said, using malloc or strdup on an embedded system is most likely just nonsense practice, see this. Nor would you use float numbers. Overall, that library seems to have been written by a desktop-minded person.
If you are implementing something like for example a chained hash table on an embedded system, you would use a statically allocated memory pool and not malloc. I'd probably go with a non-chained one for that reason (upon duplicates, pick next free spot in the buffer).
Unique device ID register (96 bits) is located under address 0x1FFFF7E8. It is factory programmed and is read-only. You can read it directly without using any other external library. For example:
unsigned int b = *(0x1FFFF7E8);
should give you the first 32 bits (31:0) of the unique device ID. If you want to retrieve a string as in case of the library mentioned, the following should work:
sprintf(id, "%08X%08X%08X", *(0x1FFFF7E8), *(0x1FFFF7E8 + 4), *(0x1FFFF7E8 + 8);
Some additional casting may be required, but generally that's what the library did. Please refer to STM32F1xx Reference Manual (RM0008), section 30.2 for more details. The exact memory location to read from is different in case of Cortex-M4 family of the MCUs.

Memory comparison causes system halt

I am working on a kernel module and I need to compare two buffers to find out if they are equivalent. I am using the memcmp function defined in the Linux kernel to do so. My first buffer is like this:
cache_buffer = (unsigned char *)vmalloc(4097);
cache_buffer[4096] = '/0';
The second buffer is from a page using the page_address() function.
page = bio_page(bio);
kmap(page);
write_buffer = (char *)page_address(page);
kunmap(page);
I have printed the contents of both buffers before hand and not only to they print correctly, but they also have the same content. So next, I do this:
result = memcmp(write_buffer, cache_buffer, 2048); // only comparing up to 2048 positions
This causes the kernel to freeze up and I cannot figure out why. I checked the implementation of memcmp and saw nothing that would cause the freeze. Can anyone suggest a cause?
Here is the memcmp implementation:
int memcmp(const void *cs, const void *ct, size_t count)
{
const unsigned char *su1, *su2;
int res = 0;
for (su1 = cs, su2 = ct; 0 < count; ++su1, ++su2, count--)
if ((res = *su1 - *su2) != 0)
break;
return res;
}
EDIT: The function causing the freeze is memcmp. When I commented it out, everything worked. Also, when I did I memcmp as follows
memcmp(write_buffer, write_buffer, 2048); //comparing two write_buffers
Everything worked as well. Only when I throw the cache_buffer into the mix is when I get the error. Also, above is a simplification of my actual code. Here is the entire function:
static int compare_data(sector_t location, struct bio * bio, struct cache_c * dmc)
{
struct dm_io_region where;
unsigned long bits;
int segno;
struct bio_vec * bvec;
struct page * page;
unsigned char * cache_data;
char * temp_data;
char * write_data;
int result, length, i;
cache_data = (unsigned char *)vmalloc((dmc->block_size * 512) + 1);
where.bdev = dmc->cache_dev->bdev;
where.count = dmc->block_size;
where.sector = location << dmc->block_shift;
printk(KERN_DEBUG "place: %llu\n", where.sector);
dm_io_sync_vm(1, &where, READ, cache_data, &bits, dmc);
length = 0;
bio_for_each_segment(bvec, bio, segno)
{
if(segno == 0)
{
page = bio_page(bio);
kmap(page);
write_data = (char *)page_address(page);
//kunmap(page);
length += bvec->bv_len;
}
else
{
page = bio_page(bio);
kmap(page);
temp_data = strcat(write_data, (char *)page_address(page));
//kunmap(page);
write_data = temp_data;
length += bvec->bv_len;
}
}
printk(KERN_INFO "length: %u\n", length);
cache_data[dmc->block_size * 512] = '\0';
for(i = 0; i < 2048; i++)
{
printk("%c", write_data[i]);
}
printk("\n");
for(i = 0; i < 2048; i++)
{
printk("%c", cache_data[i]);
}
printk("\n");
result = memcmp(write_data, cache_data, length);
return result;
}
EDIT #2: Sorry guys. The problem was not memcmp. It was the result of memcmp. When ever it returned a positive or negative number, the function that called my function would play with some pointers, one of which was uninitialized. I don't know why I didn't realize it before. Thanks for trying to help though!
I'm no kernel expert, but I would assume you need to keep this memory mapped while doing the comparison? In other words, don't call kunmap until after the memcmp is complete. I would presume that calling it before will result in write_buffer pointing to a page which is no longer mapped.
Taking your code in the other question, here is a rough attempt at incremental. Still needs some cleanup, I'm sure:
static int compare_data(sector_t location, struct bio * bio, struct cache_c * dmc)
{
struct dm_io_region where;
unsigned long bits;
int segno;
struct bio_vec * bvec;
struct page * page;
unsigned char * cache_data;
char * temp_data;
char * write_data;
int length, i;
int result = 0;
size_t position = 0;
size_t max_size = (dmc->block_size * 512) + 1;
cache_data = (unsigned char *)vmalloc(max_size);
where.bdev = dmc->cache_dev->bdev;
where.count = dmc->block_size;
where.sector = location << dmc->block_shift;
printk(KERN_DEBUG "place: %llu\n", where.sector);
dm_io_sync_vm(1, &where, READ, cache_data, &bits, dmc);
bio_for_each_segment(bvec, bio, segno)
{
// Map the page into memory
page = bio_page(bio);
write_data = (char *)kmap(page);
length = bvec->bv_len;
// Make sure we don't go past the end
if(position >= max_size)
break;
if(position + length > max_size)
length = max_size - position;
// Compare the data
result = memcmp(write_data, cache_data + position, length);
position += length;
kunmap(page);
// If the memory is not equal, bail out now and return the result
if(result != 0)
break;
}
cache_data[dmc->block_size * 512] = '\0';
return result;
}

Initializing an infinite number of char **

I'm making a raytracing engine in C using the minilibX library.
I want to be able to read in a .conf file the configuration for the scene to display:
For example:
(Az#Az 117)cat universe.conf
#randomcomment
obj:eye:x:y:z
light:sun:100
light:moon:test
The number of objects can vary between 1 and the infinite.
From now on, I'm reading the file, copying each line 1 by 1 in a char **tab, and mallocing by the number of objects found, like this:
void open_file(int fd, struct s_img *m)
{
int i;
char *s;
int curs_obj;
int curs_light;
i = 0;
curs_light = 0;
curs_obj = 0;
while (s = get_next_line(fd))
{
i = i + 1;
if (s[0] == 'l')
{
m->lights[curs_light] = s;
curs_light = curs_light + 1;
}
else if (s[0] == 'o')
{
m->objs[curs_obj] = s;
curs_obj = curs_obj + 1;
}
else if (s[0] != '#')
{
show_error(i, s);
stop_parsing(m);
}
}
Now, I want to be able to store each information of each tab[i] in a new char **tab, 1 for each object, using the ':' as a separation.
So I need to initialize and malloc an undetermined number of char **tab. How can I do that?
(Ps: I hope my code and my english are good enough for you to understand. And I'm using only the very basic function, like read, write, open, malloc... and I'm re-building everything else, like printf, get_line, and so on)
You can't allocate an indeterminate amount of memory; malloc doesn't support it. What you can do is to allocate enough memory for now and revise that later:
size_t buffer = 10;
char **tab = malloc(buffer);
//...
if (indexOfObjectToCreate > buffer) {
buffer *= 2;
tab = realloc(tab, buffer);
}
I'd use an alternative approach (as this is c, not c++) and allocate simply large buffers as we go by:
char *my_malloc(size_t n) {
static size_t space_left = 0;
static char *base = NULL;
if (base==NULL || space_left < n) base=malloc(space_left=BIG_N);
base +=n; return base-n;
}
Disclaimer: I've omitted the garbage collection stuff and testing return values and all safety measures to keep the routine short.
Another way to think this is to read the file in to a large enough mallocated array (you can check it with ftell), scan the buffer, replace delimiters, line feeds etc. with ascii zero characters and remember the starting locations of keywords.

using functions in c (return value)

Learning C and having many doubts.
I have a function (lets say function 1) that calls another function (lets say function 2).
Function 2 calculates an array of string.
How can I use this array in function 1?
Some code example:
int find_errors(char* word)
{
char error[100];
/*Given the word, It will find the duplicate chars and store it in the
error array. */
return 0;
}
int find_word(char* word)
{
find_errors (word);
printf("%s\n", error);
return 0;
}
There are at least three possible approaches:
Use a global variable
pass a parameter between them
return a pointer from the function
There are multiple ways to do this.
1) Create a dynamic array and return a pointer to the array. This will require you to manually free the memory for the array at a later time.
#define NUM_ELEMS 50
// In find_error():
char* error = malloc(NUM_ELEMS * sizeof(char));
return error;
// In find_word():
char *error = find_errors();
// do stuff
free(error);
2) Pass a pointer to find_errors that it can use as the error array. This will not require you to manually free the memory.
// In find_word():
char error[NUM_ELEMS];
find_error(error);
3) Use a global array. May make it more difficult for other people to understand your code. Has other potential problems as well.
// In global scope:
char error[NUM_ELEMS];
Your question relates to "call-by-reference" and "call-by-value".
char* getNewValsToSet(void)
{
char* new_vals = (char*) malloc(sizeof(char[5]));
new_vals[4] = '\0';
return new_vals;
}
void setValuesEven(char* vals_to_set)
{
vals_to_set[0] = 'A';
vals_to_set[2] = 'C';
}
void setValuesOdd(char* vals_to_set)
{
vals_to_set[1] = 'B';
vals_to_set[3] = 'D';
}
int main(void)
{
char* some_vals_to_set = getNewValsToSet();
setValsEven(some_vals_to_set);
setValsOdd(some_vals_to_set);
// ... now has vals "ABCD"
free(some_vals_to_set); //cleanup
return 0;
}
If you have "doubts" about learning C, IMHO it's one of the best things you can do (no matter the language in which you work) because it will explain exactly how things work "under-the-hood" (which all high-level languages try to hide to some degree).
You need to declare the error array globally and use it just like you did.
EDIT: using global variables isn't the best practice in most of the cases, like this one.
Here is an example of what you are looking for with an awesome console output. It dynamically allocates the array to hold any number errors (duplicate characters in your case) that may occur.
//Only free errors if result is > 0
int find_errors(char* word, char** errors)
{
int num_errors = 0;
int word_length = strlen(word);
int ARRAY_SIZE = MIN(8, word_length);
char existing[word_length];
int existing_index = 0;
*errors = NULL;
for(int i = 0; i < word_length; i++)
{
char character = word[i];
//Search array
for (int n = 0; n < word_length; ++n ) {
if(n >= existing_index)
{
existing[n] = character;
existing_index++;
break;
}
if (existing[n] == character) {
num_errors++;
if(!*errors)
*errors = (char*)malloc(ARRAY_SIZE * sizeof(char));
//Check if we need to resize array
if(num_errors >= ARRAY_SIZE)
{
ARRAY_SIZE *= 2;
ARRAY_SIZE = MIN(ARRAY_SIZE, word_length);
char *tmp = (char*)malloc(ARRAY_SIZE * sizeof(char));
memcpy(tmp, *errors, (unsigned long)ARRAY_SIZE);
free(*errors);
*errors = tmp;
}
//Set the error character
(*errors)[num_errors - 1] = character;
break;
}
}
}
return num_errors;
}
int find_word(char* word)
{
char* errors;
int errCount = find_errors (word, &errors);
if(errCount > 0)
{
printf("Invalid Characters: ");
for(int i =0; i < errCount; i++)
{
printf("%c ", errors[i]);
}
printf("\n");
free(errors);
}
return 0;
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
find_word("YWPEIT");
find_word("Hello World");
find_word("XxxxXXxXXoooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooOOO");
}

join() or implode() in C

One thing I love about Python and PHP is the ability to make a string from array easily:
Python: ', '.join(['a', 'b', 'c'])
PHP: implode(', ', array('a', 'b', 'c'));
However, I was wondering if anybody had an intuitive and clear way to implement this in C. Thanks!
Sure, there are ways - just nothing built-in. Many C utility libraries have functions for this - eg, glib's g_strjoinv. You can also roll your own, for example:
static char *util_cat(char *dest, char *end, const char *str)
{
while (dest < end && *str)
*dest++ = *str++;
return dest;
}
size_t join_str(char *out_string, size_t out_bufsz, const char *delim, char **chararr)
{
char *ptr = out_string;
char *strend = out_string + out_bufsz;
while (ptr < strend && *chararr)
{
ptr = util_cat(ptr, strend, *chararr);
chararr++;
if (*chararr)
ptr = util_cat(ptr, strend, delim);
}
return ptr - out_string;
}
The main reason it's not built in is because the C standard library is very minimal; they wanted to make it easy to make new implementations of C, so you don't find as many utility functions. There's also the problem that C doesn't give you many guidelines about how to, for example, decide how many elements are in arrays (I used a NULL-array-element terminator convention in the example above).
For example there is such a function in GLib: g_strjoin and g_strjoinv. Probably any bigger library has such functions.
The easiest way is to use such libraries and be happy. It's also not too hard to write this by yourself (look at the other answers). The "big" problem is just that you have to be careful while allocating and freeing those strings. It's C ;-)
Edit: I just see that you used in both examples arrays. So just that you know: g_strjoinv is what you asked for.
I found a function that does this in ANSI C here. I adapted it and added a seperator argument. Make sure to free() the string after using it.
char* join_strings(char* strings[], char* seperator, int count) {
char* str = NULL; /* Pointer to the joined strings */
size_t total_length = 0; /* Total length of joined strings */
int i = 0; /* Loop counter */
/* Find total length of joined strings */
for (i = 0; i < count; i++) total_length += strlen(strings[i]);
total_length++; /* For joined string terminator */
total_length += strlen(seperator) * (count - 1); // for seperators
str = (char*) malloc(total_length); /* Allocate memory for joined strings */
str[0] = '\0'; /* Empty string we can append to */
/* Append all the strings */
for (i = 0; i < count; i++) {
strcat(str, strings[i]);
if (i < (count - 1)) strcat(str, seperator);
}
return str;
}

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