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File editing help!

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SirEnder125 (207)
Hello. I am trying to make a program that edits an .msbt file, which is a
file containing a game's text. In this case a file containing unicode char
ID's, it's a software keyboard file telling the keyboard what keys to use.

Anyway,

My question is, how would I make a code that edits the file at a certain offset, because, for example the ID for the letter a is at an offset that
I want the code to edit.

My code would edit the number at the offset and save the file.


Something like:
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#include ... //fstream, etc.

int main()
{
//code to get the whole file content in 1 line (maybe using getline())

//....Please help!!!
}


Tell me if clarification is needed.
jonnin (11437)
if you want offsets treat it as a binary file.
all text files are binary files.
not all binary files are text files.

any tutorial on binary files will show you how to move around, basically seek() and tell() type things.
alternately if the file is small or you prefer it you can pull it into a large vector of bytes or a string or something and use [] to get to offsets, then write your buffer back over the original when done.

if you add or remove bytes, you have to deal with that. If its just overwriting a byte or two you do not, do you understand this?
Last edited on
SirEnder125 (207)
Ok, but my main problem here is getting the whole file as one string, how do I do this?

I do not know how to use binary by the way. How would I do this?
Last edited on
mbozzi (3932)
Here's a fairly awful but succinct function:
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auto streambuf_contents(std::istream& stream)
{
  return std::string(std::istreambuf_iterator{stream}, {});
}
Last edited on
SirEnder125 (207)
What does auto mean? And what does the code do?
Ganado (6811)
Puts the contents of the stream (in your case, a file stream), into a std::string.
auto deduces the return type automatically... in this case it's just a std::string.

If you actually showed us an example of this file format you're dealing with, someone might be able to give more specific help. If the game you're talking about has a wiki, it might have some file format information. For example, the classic Fallout games used "FRM" files, and their format is documented at https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/FRM_file
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SirEnder125 (207)
Here is the file content:

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Last edited on
SirEnder125 (207)
It's a .LZ file, I don't know what LZ means.
deleted account xyzzy (5768)
It's a .LZ file, I don't know what LZ means.

https://bfy.tw/PJcm

Simply amazing the information the internet has available.
SirEnder125 (207)
So, how can I get the whole file as an std::string?
By using mbozzi's function?

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auto streambuf_contents(std::istream& stream)
{
  return std::string(std::istreambuf_iterator{stream}, {});
}


I tried this code:

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#include <include.h> //iostream, etc.

auto streambuf_contents(std::istream& stream)
{
    return std::string(std::istreambuf_iterator{stream}, {});
}

int main()
{
	ifstream file("main.cpp");
	cout << streambuf_contents(file);
}


I get a ton of errors.
Last edited on
Ganado (6811)
When opened in binary mode, you can put the exact contents of the file into a string. A string in this instance is just an array of bytes. But do you know what to then do with that string of bytes? If so, great. you're done. But if not, then you need to look up what the format of this msbt file is.

I searched the first part of your file (MsgStdBn) on the interwebs, and the first result is:
http://mk8.tockdom.com/wiki/MSBT_(File_Format)
which matches your first post's extension, so I am guessing that's indeed the file format you're looking for.

The second result is:
https://github.com/Kinnay/Nintendo-File-Formats/wiki/MSBT-File-Format

You can see the per-byte breakdown of the file format in those links.

To work with binary files, I suggest starting at this tutorial:
Disch's tutorial to good binary files
http://www.cplusplus.com/articles/DzywvCM9/
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deleted account xyzzy (5768)
It's a compressed data file. You will need to uncompress the data in the file before/as you read the file.

There are 3rd party libraries available to deal with compressed data so your program "sees" the uncompressed data. Search the internet.

You will need to recompress ALL the data you read if you modify the data and want to save the file back in a format the game can understand.

This is IMO not a noob task, but it can be a great learning experience when you do the coding. Making mistakes is a great teaching tool.

You will screw up the data in the beginning so making copies of the game data before you start mucking around will save your butt.
Ganado (6811)
There appears to some confusion, because the file that he actually pasted (the half-way readable binary contents) does not appear to be an LZ file, rather it appears to be the MSBT file format that he originally mentioned.

But while we're on the subject, Lzip can be used to decompress LZ files to actually access their contents.
http://lzip.nongnu.org/lzip.html
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SirEnder125 (207)
Well, I've downloaded a .bat file that uses tools like makerom.exe to decompress the .LZ files.

Also, with binary mode, do I just do: 
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string s;
ifstream f("File", std::ios::binary") //???
ifstream >> s;
SirEnder125 (207)

There appears to some confusion, because the file that he actually pasted (the half-way readable binary contents) does not appear to be an LZ file, rather it appears to be the MSBT file format that he originally mentioned.

But while we're on the subject, Lzip can be used to decompress LZ files to actually access their contents.


Is this because it is decompressed? Or what? it was called like: swkbd_lz.bin before decompression.
Ganado (6811)
No idea. I'm just going off what's in this thread and what I glanced at on the links I posted.
SirEnder125 (207)
Oh, ok. As to how to open a file in binary,
will this work?

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string s;
ifstream f("File", std::ios::binary") //???
ifstream >> s;
deleted account xyzzy (5768)
Yeah, an MSBT format, and the link you gave, Ganado, has the source for an MSBT editor. But it is written in C#, not C++.

C#, *ick*

C# is not a bad programming language, as such, it's just not as OS generic as C++.
SirEnder125 (207)
Oh, ok.
Ganado (6811)
This compiles with C++17:
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#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
#include <iterator>

auto streambuf_contents(std::istream& stream)
{
	return std::string(std::istreambuf_iterator{stream}, {});
}

int main()
{
	std::ifstream fin("in", std::ios::binary);
	std::string bytes = streambuf_contents(fin);
}


It was the answer to your literal question from earlier. There are other ways to do this, look at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2912520/read-file-contents-into-a-string-in-c
That being said, I probably don't even suggest doing it this way.

As I mentioned, for binary files I suggest looking at that tutorial link I pasted. A file is just an array of bytes, and the different groups of bytes have meaning. For example, in 
0xAA 0xBB 0xCC 0xDD 0xFF
it might mean that byte indices 0 and 1 represent a 16-bit signed integer in little-endian format. Or maybe they're 2x 8-bit characters. It depends on what the file format says they are.
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