https://github.com/dmendel/bindata

BinData - Reading and Writing Binary Data in Ruby
https://github.com/dmendel/bindata

Keywords

binary-analysis declarative-language file-format reverse-engineering ruby

Keywords from Contributors

rubygem crash-reporting ruby-gem rack multithreading rake activerecord rakefile lalr-parser-generator parser-generator

Last synced: about 22 hours ago
JSON representation

Repository metadata

BinData - Reading and Writing Binary Data in Ruby

Host: GitHub
URL: https://github.com/dmendel/bindata
Owner: dmendel
License: bsd-2-clause
Created: 2013-05-17T02:27:43.000Z (almost 13 years ago)
Default Branch: master
Last Pushed: 2026-01-31T15:38:54.000Z (about 1 month ago)
Last Synced: 2026-02-24T06:35:13.262Z (7 days ago)
Topics: binary-analysis, declarative-language, file-format, reverse-engineering, ruby
Language: Ruby
Homepage:
Size: 1.52 MB
Stars: 625
Watchers: 17
Forks: 56
Open Issues: 3
Releases: 0
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- Changelog: ChangeLog.rdoc
- License: LICENSE

What is BinData?

Do you ever find yourself writing code like this?

io = File.open(...)
len = io.read(2).unpack("v")
name = io.read(len)
width, height = io.read(8).unpack("VV")
puts "Rectangle #{name} is #{width} x #{height}"

It’s ugly, violates DRY and doesn't feel like Ruby.

There is a better way. Here’s how you’d write the above using BinData.

class Rectangle < BinData::Record
  endian :little
  uint16 :len
  string :name, :read_length => :len
  uint32 :width
  uint32 :height
end

io = File.open(...)
r  = Rectangle.read(io)
puts "Rectangle #{r.name} is #{r.width} x #{r.height}"

BinData provides a declarative way to read and write structured binary data.

This means the programmer specifies what the format of the binary
data is, and BinData works out how to read and write data in this
format. It is an easier (and more readable) alternative to
ruby's #pack and #unpack methods.

BinData makes it easy to create new data types. It supports all the common
primitive datatypes that are found in structured binary data formats. Support
for dependent and variable length fields is built in.

Installation

$ gem install bindata

Documentation

BinData manual.

Contact

If you have any queries / bug reports / suggestions, please contact me
(Dion Mendel) via email at bindata@dmau.org

Owner metadata

Name: Dion Mendel
Login: dmendel
Email:
Kind: user
Description:
Website:
Location: Australia/Perth
Twitter:
Company:
Icon url: https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/38263?v=4
Repositories: 1
Last ynced at: 2023-07-12T02:01:41.500Z
Profile URL: https://github.com/dmendel

GitHub Events

Total

Pull request event: 2
Fork event: 4
Issues event: 2
Watch event: 39
Issue comment event: 4
Push event: 9
Gollum event: 2
Create event: 1

Last Year

Fork event: 2
Issues event: 2
Watch event: 30
Issue comment event: 2
Push event: 8
Gollum event: 1
Create event: 1

Committers metadata

Last synced: 2 days ago

Total Commits: 614
Total Committers: 13
Avg Commits per committer: 47.231
Development Distribution Score (DDS): 0.482

Commits in past year: 15
Committers in past year: 1
Avg Commits per committer in past year: 15.0
Development Distribution Score (DDS) in past year: 0.0

Name	Email	Commits
dmendel	d**l@7**6	318
Dion Mendel	d**n@l**m	192
Dion Mendel	b**a@d**o	91
Peter Goldstein	p**n@g**m	2
Charles Oliver Nutter	h**s@h**m	2
Aaron Patterson	a**n@g**m	2
cdelafuente-r7	c**e@r**m	1
Patrick Linnane	p**k@l**o	1
Mark Young	m**g@a**o	1
Cédric Boutillier	b**l@d**g	1
Brent Cook	b**b@g**m	1
Bertrand Paquet	b**t@g**m	1
Akira Matsuda	r**e@d**p	1

Committer domains:

Issue and Pull Request metadata

Last synced: 7 days ago

Total issues: 90
Total pull requests: 27
Average time to close issues: about 1 month
Average time to close pull requests: 24 days
Total issue authors: 60
Total pull request authors: 20
Average comments per issue: 2.82
Average comments per pull request: 2.04
Merged pull request: 11
Bot issues: 0
Bot pull requests: 0

Past year issues: 2
Past year pull requests: 1
Past year average time to close issues: 7 days
Past year average time to close pull requests: N/A
Past year issue authors: 2
Past year pull request authors: 1
Past year average comments per issue: 4.5
Past year average comments per pull request: 0.0
Past year merged pull request: 0
Past year bot issues: 0
Past year bot pull requests: 0

More stats: https://issues.ecosyste.ms/repositories/lookup?url=https://github.com/dmendel/bindata

Top Issue Authors

Tails (4)
lilijreey (3)
zeroSteiner (3)
michaeljpetter (3)
byteit101 (3)
cowquant (3)
ccoenen (3)
adfoster-r7 (3)
peterjmorgan (3)
aidansteele (2)
hopesea (2)
andywatts (2)
vihai (2)
madprogrammer (2)
tan-wei (2)

Top Pull Request Authors

p-linnane (2)
dduugg (2)
petergoldstein (2)
tenderlove (2)
franzliedke (2)
mark-young-atg (2)
zeroSteiner (2)
S-YOU (1)
ghost (1)
cdelafuente-r7 (1)
hiroeorz (1)
amatsuda (1)
jeremyevans (1)
masarakki (1)
gogainda (1)

Top Issue Labels

question (27)
bug (6)
enhancement (4)
wontfix (1)
invalid (1)
wishlist (1)

Top Pull Request Labels

enhancement (1)

Package metadata

Total packages: 13
Total downloads:
- rubygems: 254,149,521 total
Total docker downloads: 1,846,026,600
Total dependent packages: 138 (may contain duplicates)
Total dependent repositories: 3,026 (may contain duplicates)
Total versions: 161
Total maintainers: 1
Total advisories: 1

gem.coop: bindata

BinData is a declarative way to read and write binary file formats. This means the programmer specifies *what* the format of the binary data is, and BinData works out *how* to read and write data in this format. It is an easier ( and more readable ) alternative to ruby's #pack and #unpack methods.

Homepage: https://github.com/dmendel/bindata
Documentation: http://www.rubydoc.info/gems/bindata/
Licenses: BSD-2-Clause
Latest release: 2.5.1 (published 11 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-03-02T03:03:32.304Z (1 day ago)
Versions: 59
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Downloads: 127,064,433 Total
Docker Downloads: 923,013,300
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Docker downloads count: 0.058%
- Average: 0.065%
- Downloads: 0.202%
Maintainers (1)
- dmendel

rubygems.org: bindata

Homepage: https://github.com/dmendel/bindata
Documentation: http://www.rubydoc.info/gems/bindata/
Licenses: BSD-2-Clause
Latest release: 2.5.1 (published 11 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-03-02T09:03:58.397Z (1 day ago)
Versions: 59
Dependent Packages: 138
Dependent Repositories: 3,026
Downloads: 127,085,088 Total
Docker Downloads: 923,013,300
Rankings:
- Docker downloads count: 0.138%
- Downloads: 0.223%
- Dependent packages count: 0.25%
- Dependent repos count: 0.57%
- Average: 1.196%
- Stargazers count: 2.379%
- Forks count: 3.618%
Maintainers (1)
- dmendel
Advisories:
- Potential Denial-of-Service in bindata

proxy.golang.org: github.com/dmendel/bindata

Homepage:
Documentation: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/dmendel/bindata#section-documentation
Licenses: bsd-2-clause
Latest release: v2.5.1+incompatible (published 11 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-02-26T11:01:24.164Z (5 days ago)
Versions: 33
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Stargazers count: 2.518%
- Forks count: 3.28%
- Average: 6.544%
- Dependent packages count: 9.576%
- Dependent repos count: 10.802%

debian-11: ruby-bindata

Homepage: https://github.com/dmendel/bindata
Documentation: https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/ruby-bindata
Licenses:
Latest release: 2.4.8-1 (published 20 days ago)
Last Synced: 2026-02-13T08:18:49.137Z (18 days ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

debian-10: ruby-bindata

Homepage: http://github.com/dmendel/bindata
Documentation: https://packages.debian.org/buster/ruby-bindata
Licenses:
Latest release: 2.3.5-1 (published 20 days ago)
Last Synced: 2026-02-13T04:19:27.761Z (18 days ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

ubuntu-24.04: ruby-bindata

Homepage: https://github.com/dmendel/bindata
Licenses:
Latest release: 2.4.14-1 (published 25 days ago)
Last Synced: 2026-02-06T14:57:18.933Z (25 days ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:

ubuntu-23.04: ruby-bindata

Homepage: https://github.com/dmendel/bindata
Licenses:
Latest release: 2.4.14-1 (published 20 days ago)
Last Synced: 2026-02-11T06:36:16.183Z (20 days ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

ubuntu-20.04: ruby-bindata

Homepage: http://github.com/dmendel/bindata
Licenses:
Latest release: 2.3.5-1 (published 18 days ago)
Last Synced: 2026-02-13T07:10:41.612Z (18 days ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

ubuntu-23.10: ruby-bindata

Homepage: https://github.com/dmendel/bindata
Licenses:
Latest release: 2.4.14-1 (published 18 days ago)
Last Synced: 2026-02-13T18:15:46.277Z (18 days ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

ubuntu-24.10: ruby-bindata

Homepage: https://github.com/dmendel/bindata
Licenses:
Latest release: 2.4.14-1 (published 22 days ago)
Last Synced: 2026-02-09T16:13:53.808Z (22 days ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:

ubuntu-22.04: ruby-bindata

Homepage: https://github.com/dmendel/bindata
Licenses:
Latest release: 2.4.8-2 (published 18 days ago)
Last Synced: 2026-02-13T13:13:27.661Z (18 days ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

debian-13: ruby-bindata

Homepage: https://github.com/dmendel/bindata
Documentation: https://packages.debian.org/trixie/ruby-bindata
Licenses:
Latest release: 2.4.14-1 (published 19 days ago)
Last Synced: 2026-02-13T13:13:41.197Z (18 days ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

debian-12: ruby-bindata

Homepage: https://github.com/dmendel/bindata
Documentation: https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/ruby-bindata
Licenses:
Latest release: 2.4.14-1 (published 18 days ago)
Last Synced: 2026-02-12T23:25:57.823Z (18 days ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

Dependencies

bindata.gemspec rubygems

coveralls >= 0 development
minitest > 5.0.0, < 5.12.0 development
rake >= 0 development

.github/workflows/ci.yml actions

actions/checkout v2 composite
ruby/setup-ruby v1 composite

Gemfile rubygems

Score: 30.472778691432445