MilchRatchet / Ceb

Dynamic binary embedding through a single C file.

Ceb

Ceb (C embed binaries) is a tool for embedding any binary file into an executable through a single C file. The access to each file is then abstracted away through a loader function which allows for dynamic embedding of files without changing the code of the executable.

Note that the code is currently untested on big endian machines.

Usage

Add this repository as a submodule to your repository. Then set up your CMakeLists.txt as follows:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.25)

project(ExampleProject LANGUAGES C)

# ...

add_subdirectory(Ceb)
include_directories(${CEB_INCLUDE_DIR})
include(ceb_embed_files)

set(EMBED_FILE_NAME "example_output")
ceb_embed_files(PROJECT ExampleProject OUTPUT ${EMBED_FILE_NAME} INPUT ${example_input1} ${example_input2})

# ...

add_executable(ExampleExecutable ${EXECUTABLE_SOURCE_FILES} ${CEB_OUTPUT_FILE_${EMBED_FILE_NAME}})
add_library(ExampleLibrary ${LIBRARY_SOURCE_FILES} ${CEB_OUTPUT_FILE_${EMBED_FILE_NAME}})

Then you can load the files through two different methods. The first option is to retrieve the size of file, allocated an appropriately sized memory buffer and then copy the file to this buffer.

#include "ceb.h"

// ...

int64_t size = -1;
uint64_t info;

ceb_load("file_name.example", (void*) 0, &size, &info);

if (info || !size) {
  // Error
}

void* data = malloc(size);

ceb_load("file_name.example", data, &size, &info);

if (info) {
  // Error
}

Alternatively, you can retrieve the pointer to the file's content.

#include "ceb.h"

// ...

int64_t size;
void* data;
uint64_t info;

ceb_access("file_name.example", &data, &size, &info);

if (info || !size) {
  // Error
}

License

Please see LICENSE.