Parsing a binary file. What is a modern way?

Question

I have a binary file with some layout I know. For example let format be like this:

• 2 bytes (unsigned short) - length of a string
• 5 bytes (5 x chars) - the

Answer 1

I personally do it this way:

// some code which loads the file in memory
#pragma pack(push, 1)
struct someFile { int a, b, c; char d[0xEF]; };
#pragma pack(pop)

someFile* f = (someFile*) (file_in_memory);
int filePropertyA = f->a;

Very effective way for fixed-size structs at the start of the file.