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Grep on a binary file

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# 1  
Old 09-17-2010
Grep on a binary file
Hi everyone.

I have a binary file in wich there is a date with format DDMMMYY, for example 02May09.

I can see it opening this file with vim: inside a binary mess, I can clearly read that string.

Now: do you know a way to extract this string from the file?
I woul like to do something like
Code:
grep "Jan | Feb | ... | Dec" binaryFile

Thanks in advance.
# 2  
Old 09-17-2010
Hi.

Perhaps with strings?
Code:
strings binaryFile | grep -E "Jan|Feb|..."

# 3  
Old 09-17-2010
Yeah, great!

I'm almost done.

The remaining problem is that this date is on the same line with a lot of other stuff and when I launch your command, the whole line is retrieved.
I obtain only the date with
Code:
strings binaryFile | grep -E "Sep" | awk '{ print $21 }'

because there are only strings, separated by blanks or tabs.

But I have a lot of those file to parse...what if this date is not always at position 21?

Is there a way to generalize it?
# 4  
Old 09-17-2010
Try:
Code:
sed -n 's/[0-9][0-9]Jan\|Feb\|...Sep\|Oct\|Nov\|Dec[0-9][0-9]/&/g'

# 5  
Old 09-17-2010
Excuse me, but I don't understand how to use your command.
I've tryed
Code:
strings binaryFile | sed -n 's/[0-9][0-9]Jan\|Feb\|Mar\|Apr\|Jun\|Jul\|Aug\|Sep\|Oct\|Nov\|Dec\[0-9][0-9]/&/g'

and several other combination with the commands above, but it didn't works...
Could you please post the complete command?
# 6  
Old 09-17-2010
Code:
cat binaryFile | sed -n 's/[0-9][0-9]Jan\|Feb\|...Sep\|Oct\|Nov\|Dec[0-9][0-9]/&/g'

It can don't work if line is too long, can be error. lenght from newline to newline.
some distribution sed no do:
Code:
\|

you can do:
Code:
cat binaryFile | sed -n 's/[0-9][0-9]Jan[0-9][0-9]/&/g';'s/[0-9][0-9]Feb[0-9][0-9]/&/g';'s/[0-9][0-9]Mar[0-9][0-9]/&/g'

your try is good too:
Code:
strings binaryFile | sed -n 's/[0-9][0-9]Jan[0-9][0-9]/&/g';'s/[0-9][0-9]Feb[0-9][0-9]/&/g';'s/[0-9][0-9]Mar[0-9][0-9]/&/g'

Last edited by john1212; 09-17-2010 at 09:20 AM..
# 7  
Old 09-17-2010
Code:
user@localhost ~ $ cat binaryFile | sed -n 's/[0-9][0-9]Jan\|Feb\|Mar\|Apr\|Jun\|Jul\|Aug\|Sep\|Oct\|Nov\|Dec\[0-9][0-9]/&/g'
user@localhost ~ $ strings binaryFile | sed -n 's/[0-9][0-9]Jan\|Feb\|Mar\|Apr\|Jun\|Jul\|Aug\|Sep\|Oct\|Nov\|Dec\[0-9][0-9]/&/g'
user@localhost ~ $ strings binaryFile | sed -n 's/[0-9][0-9]Sep[0-9][0-9]/&/g'
user@localhost ~ $

No errors reported, but it doesn't work...
If possible, the simpler way is to use this (which works):
Code:
user@localhost ~ $ strings binaryFile | grep -E "Jan|Feb|Mar|Apr|May|Jun|Jul|Aug|Sep|Oct|Nov|Dec" | awk '{ print $21 }'
09Sep09
candini@MEEO-office-007 ~ $

but instead to use "print $21", use a parametric "print $(Jan|Feb|Mar|Apr|May|Jun|Jul|Aug|Sep|Oct|Nov|Dec)".

But I don't know how to implement something like that...
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