cxxmbd

cxxmbd is a set of utilities for embedding and decoding files as binary. It consists of two parts: a command line application, and a header only decoding utility. These can be used in combination to include raw data in your c++ applications, and then decode them on a user's device. Gone is the era of using xxd to create arrays, it's time for c++ to shine!

Modes of operation

Building the embedder is very simple. All you have to do is adjust some settings in your cmake file. cxxmbd has 3 different build modes, depending on your intent: attach, include and standalone. The first mode, attach, is used to build the utility in the hot reloading embed mode. The other two, include and standalone, are different methods of creating a command line interface.

Attaching cxxmbd to your project

Adding the utility to your project is relatively easy, only requiring two things: a .toml file, and a dependency. First let's look at adding the dependency:

set(CXXMBD_MODE attach)

add_subdirectory(cxxmbd)
add_executable(foo main.cpp lib.h)
target_link_libraries(foo PUBLIC cxxmbd)
add_dependencies(foo mbdrun)

With this, an executable will be generated, and when building, the program will look for a file called mbdconfig.toml in your root build directory. An example .toml file can be found in examples.

Building the CLI(s)

Now let's look at building the program as a CLI. We will first look at include, which allows you to add the cxxmbd source files to an unrelated project. The following is an example of how to build in include mode:

set(CXXMBD_MODE include)

add_subdirectory(cxxmbd)
add_executable(foo main.cpp lib.h)
target_link_libraries(foo PUBLIC cxxmbd)

Next, we have standalone. This mode will build cxxmbd as a standalone project, with the method of inputting arguments left up to the user.

To select the regular main function, use the following:

set(CXXMBD_MODE standalone)
set(CXXMBD_WINMAIN false)

add_subdirectory(cxxmbd)
add_executable(foo $ENV{MAIN_PATH})
target_link_libraries(foo PUBLIC cxxmbd)

WinMain can be enabled by changing the associated variable to true.

Using the CLI

To embed data in a source file, you must add an EMBED_POINT to the source file. You can then run this:

cxxmbd --embed <path-to-output> <path-to-source(s)>

You can also dump the data to its own text file with the name of your choice by running:

cxxmbd --dump <name> <path-to-source(s)>

For more info, run:

cxxmbd --help

Decoding your data

Your data will be embedded using the name(s) of the files you input. For example, if you embed the file example.txt, struct<N> example {...}; will be created. With this, you can now decode your files.

To decode a struct, all you need to do is include mbddecoder.hpp and then write:

cxxmbd::decode_embed(example);

This will create a new file in the program's current directory. You can also supply a custom path to create the file in.

Notes

This program is in its very early stages, so if you encounter any bugs, be sure to let me know!