Keyboard shortcuts

Press or to navigate between chapters

Press S or / to search in the book

Press ? to show this help

Press Esc to hide this help

Pattern Matching Binaries

“It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.” — Douglas Adams

Pattern matching binaries, however, is a different matter entirely. It turns out you can solve major problems by matching bit patterns—a fact that has revolutionized protocol parsing, image processing, and the general manipulation of structured binary data.