Motorola S19 format files comparison

[MoKouchak]

Is there a way, plug-in or otherwise, to compare the data payload (with regard to their offset) of two Motorola S19 records? The difficulty with S records is that they can hold exactly the same binary data but represent them in different ways.

Can this be added to the future wish list if currently not possible? The comparison can be done in 2 ways. Either compare bytes at their corresponding offset OR find similar bytes and display their offsets.

TIA

[Tim]

Re: Motorola S19 format files comparison

Currently, the only way BC could compare S record files would be to use an external tool that converts them to a memory dump. Our text viewer has support for automatically calling external conversion programs.

I will add S19 record support to our wishlist. This is a good candidate for a new plug-in viewer.

[uzziah0]

Any action on this?

[Aaron]

Hello,

We have not been able to implement our own solution for parsing and comparing these files. However, if you are familiar with our BC3 Data Compare, you can open the files here. Because of the special definition of S19's 2nd column, which determines the column size of column 4, you would need to run the files through an External Conversion first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S19_(file_format)

This conversion would make each column the same size, introducing dummy data into column 4 so that it is always the max width. This is defined as part of the File Format, which also defines where the columns should be and how many characters long.

You can define a new Data format in the Tools menu -> File Formats dialog, and define the conversion there as well. We have an example KB article for a Text format conversion, but the process is similar for a Data format:
http://www.scootersoftware.com/suppo...rnalconversion

If you create a conversion process, we would love to see it and may even be able to host it on our website in the Additional Downloads section.


If you are still using BC2, a similar solution can be implemented in the BC2 File Viewer, using a new Rule (Tools menu -> Options, Rules). You would also need to sort on the Key manually during the conversion process.

[Hadl]

Hello,
is there any update on this topic?

What I'd like to have is the same comparison as the HEX Compare with all the features.
- Display Address, HEX and ASCII on each line
- Right click calculates value in many data types with different endianess.

One totally non performant idea would be to convert the file to a 4GB bin file for 32bit Addresses (Address = Byte offset), filling the non used areas with a default pattern (e.g. 0xFF). The problem here would be that this pattern could not be recognized as differences anymore.

It would be great if I would be able to modify the files in this view as well.
An edit mode for HEX Compare would be useful here.
An export to s19 with a new format would be OK for me.

I guess this issues can be solved by internal interpretation of the file.

Is there any smart way to do this?

[Aaron]

Hello,

Beyond Compare 4 adds support for editing in the Hex Compare, and would display Hex and ASCII on each line as well as Endian values in the context menu (right-click) or under the View menu.

The Hex format now also supports an External Conversion, which can convert from s19 to bin, if you have a conversion command line you would like to use.

4 gigs is over our Max File Size test case. Do you have smaller files that would work under the Hex Compare, and does this session type meet your needs?

We do not have a pre-packaged s19 conversion format available at this time, but it is something we are looking into.

[Hadl]

Hallo Aaron
the maybe I wan't very clear. My S19 files are describing an amount of about 1MB. The full adress range of 32bit would allow 4GB.
The S19 files I'm comparing are not only containing one block, but multiple blocks with Gaps in between.
Therefore with bin files I'd loose the Adress of the block and I could not see the block after the gap.

That's why I'd like to map the S19 content to the internal Hex Compare representation with seeing multiple blocks with gaps in between.

[Aaron]

Sorry, I'm not familiar with the technical details dealing with S19 files.

Would using the View menu -> Layout allow you to restructure the view to show your blocks? We do not auto-detect or break apart gaps, but do have alignment in the Session Settings that should detect the blocks of similar hex and align them.

We wouldn't offer extra control beyond the current Hex, but the conversion could re-sort or otherwise alter the data to be better presented in the Hex Compare view or in the Text Compare view. The Text Compare does have a Hex Details section that can be enabled at the bottom of the view.