[Info-vax] Hex editor for VMS Alpha ?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2017-07-10, Paul Sture <nospam at sture.ch> wrote:
> On 2017-07-10, Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>> On 2017-07-09, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderholm at telia.com> wrote:
>>> Den 2017-07-09 kl. 23:33, skrev Simon Clubley:
>>>
>>>> What are people using for a hex editor on VMS Alpha these days ?
>>>> 
>>>
>>> Depends on what the goal is. Are you talking about interactive
>>> or automated/batch? For display-only, DUMP. For other tasks it
>>> highly depends in what the task is about. Sometimes lifting the
>>> file over to my PC and run UltraEdit on it which has a nice hex
>>> display mode with edit on any file.
>>
>> Interactive editing of binary files on VMS.
>>
>> Since I would be editing the files many times within a short period,
>> moving the files to another box and back again would be a pain.
>>
>
> What exactly do you mean by "binary files"?
>

Files which contain a stream of bytes with anything from 0x00 to 0xff.
Sometimes they have no internal structure and sometimes they are variable
length sequential records with binary data in the records.

I'm looking to be able to overtype existing bytes as well as shuffle
data along to insert or delete bytes. If the file has an internal
variable length sequential structure then I would like the overall
structure to be preserved (with record lengths being modified
as required) when the modified file is written out.

> I've used Datatrieve in the past to edit binary data within RMS files.
>
> Does a VMS port of xxd exist?
>

Stephen has also made the same suggestion. xxd will work for some of
the cases I have in mind but not all of them. Thanks to both of you
for the suggestion however.

The VFE decuslib link which Brian mentioned is not currently working
for me; I will try it and the other URLs suggested later.

Thanks,

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
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