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I just discovered vlf-mode (View Large Files) and I am using it to view a large binary file in hexl-mode and read certain metadata from headers within the file. It works great, with one exception. When I move to another "batch" within the file, hexl-mode starts the addresses of the next batch at 0x00000000 which makes it hard to know which byte I am actually at.

Are there existing solutions for viewing large binary files but maintaining information about the absolute "address" of a given line?

Malabarba
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nispio
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1 Answers1

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That sounds like a missing feature in vlf-mode, and quite possibly some missing customization in hexl-mode.

The way hexl-mode works if by running the hexl program (shipped with Emacs, see hexl-program), and displaying the output. This output already contains the offsets, they're just made non-editable. So, vlf-mode should add vlf-start-pos to all of those. Then of course, things like hexl-goto-address should also be modified, by transparently substracting the same vls-start-pos. It might also be worth forcing vlf-batch-size to be alignment friendly by making it a multiple of 256 when hexl-mode is used.

That sounds like a too invasive change to do it here, but I suspect the vlf-mode author would appreciate the feedback, and would be in a good position to implement just that.

Sigma
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