Opening Non-PDB Files

Yorick expects binary files to be in PDB format, but it can be trained to recognize any file whose format can be described using its Contents Log file description language. The basic idea is that if you can figure out how to compute the names, data types, dimensions, and disk addresses of the data in the file, you can train Yorick to open the file; once open, all of Yorick's machinery to manipulate the data will grind away as usual.

The following functions can be used to teach Yorick about a non-PDB file; use help to get complete details:

_read, f, address, var

raw binary read

install_struct, f, struct_name, size, align, order, layout

define a primitive data type

add_variable, f, address, name, type, dimlist

add a variable

add_member, f, struct_name, offset, name, type, dimlist

build up a data structure

install_struct, f, struct_name

finish add_member struct

data_align, f, alignment

specify default data alignment

struct_align, f, alignment

specify default struct alignment

add_record, f, time, ncyc, address

declare record

add_next_file, f, filename

open new family member

To write a plain text description of any binary file, use:

dump_clog, f, clogname  write Contents Log for f