how to get hexdump of a structure data

Question

 ....
 finalize(char *hdrs, sendip_data *headers[], int index,
                    sendip_data *data, sendip_data *pack)
 {

 ........

For debugging purposes I want a hex dump of the data and pack structures, which are of type sendip_data, a really complex structure. Actually they contain some binary information so I am not sure whether output of my project is correct or not. So for debugging purposes, I want to write the data into a file so that I can use hexdump as follows -

$hexdump -C file.txt

Also as this is a run time generation of a n/w packet so I am also not sure about the length of data and pack structure which I think fread / fwrite will require ..So please suggest me something.

Answer 1

The following code will give you a hex dump of arbitrary memory from within your code.

#include <stdio.h>

void hexDump (const char * desc, const void * addr, const int len) {
    int i;
    unsigned char buff[17];
    const unsigned char * pc = (const unsigned char *)addr;

    // Output description if given.

    if (desc != NULL)
        printf ("%s:\n", desc);

    // Length checks.

    if (len == 0) {
        printf("  ZERO LENGTH\n");
        return;
    }
    else if (len < 0) {
        printf("  NEGATIVE LENGTH: %d\n", len);
        return;
    }

    // Process every byte in the data.

    for (i = 0; i < len; i++) {
        // Multiple of 16 means new line (with line offset).

        if ((i % 16) == 0) {
            // Don't print ASCII buffer for the "zeroth" line.

            if (i != 0)
                printf ("  %s\n", buff);

            // Output the offset.

            printf ("  %04x ", i);
        }

        // Now the hex code for the specific character.
        printf (" %02x", pc[i]);

        // And buffer a printable ASCII character for later.

        if ((pc[i] < 0x20) || (pc[i] > 0x7e)) // isprint() may be better.
            buff[i % 16] = '.';
        else
            buff[i % 16] = pc[i];
        buff[(i % 16) + 1] = '\0';
    }

    // Pad out last line if not exactly 16 characters.

    while ((i % 16) != 0) {
        printf ("   ");
        i++;
    }

    // And print the final ASCII buffer.

    printf ("  %s\n", buff);
}

// Very simple test harness.

int main (int argc, char *argv[]) {
    char my_str[] = "a char string greater than 16 chars";
    hexDump ("my_str", &my_str, sizeof (my_str));
    return 0;
}

You pass into hexDump a description, memory address and length, and it will output a hex dump (including character data) for examination. When you run it with the included main, the output is:

my_str:
  0000  61 20 63 68 61 72 20 73 74 72 69 6e 67 20 67 72  a char string gr
  0010  65 61 74 65 72 20 74 68 61 6e 20 31 36 20 63 68  eater than 16 ch
  0020  61 72 73 00                                      ars.