Done: HxD: Allow editing of NTFS file stream

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mhurley
Posts: 15
Joined: 28 Jun 2006 04:14

Done: HxD: Allow editing of NTFS file stream

Post by mhurley »

It would be nice to edit/view an NTFS alternate stream on files and folders. In case you didn't know, these streams are accessible with the following syntax:

c:\dir:streamname
c:\dir\file.ext:streamname
Maël
Site Admin
Posts: 1455
Joined: 12 Mar 2005 14:15

Post by Maël »

Fixed in development version.

A future version might add more special support for ADS (add, rename, delete alternate data streams).
Maël
Site Admin
Posts: 1455
Joined: 12 Mar 2005 14:15

Post by Maël »

Done in actual beta version (see download section)
mhurley
Posts: 15
Joined: 28 Jun 2006 04:14

Post by mhurley »

How is this functionality accessed?
In the Open File Dialog, I tried the following and none worked. All told me that it was an invalid path.

file.ext:$DATA
c:\fullpath\file.ext:$DATA
"c:\fullpath\file.ext":$DATA

Any ideas?
FYI, the top one I tried should be equivalent to just file.ext since $DATA is the main data stream.
Maël
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Posts: 1455
Joined: 12 Mar 2005 14:15

Post by Maël »

Opening ADS through the open dialog doesn't work as it considers it an invalid filename (I'll change that).

Though using the commandline HxD correctly opens alternate data streams, try the following (assuming you are in the directory where HxD is installed):

echo Hello > c:\test.txt:name123
more < c:\test.txt:name123

hxd c:\test.txt:name123


However file.ext:$DATA does not work, but also not with other utils like "more", try this:
more < c:\test.txt:$DATA
Maël
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Joined: 12 Mar 2005 14:15

Post by Maël »

Hi again,

[edit]
In general the syntax is
filename:streamname:streamtype
So for the above example streamname is the empty string and streamtype is $DATA.

That means the above example needs two colons to work:
c:\fullpath\file.ext::$DATA
"c:\fullpath\file.ext"::$DATA
[/edit]


In my development version I modified the open and save-dialogs such that you can enter filenames with ADS syntax, but all checking (like file exists ) still works. To keep the normal functioning of the open/save dialogs while accepting ADS syntax was quite a challenge, since the dialogs weren't designed for that, but now it works.

If you want to test, here is my development version (in German):
http://mh-nexus.de/downloads/HxD.zip

Naturally the stable version will be available in English, too.

Edit: Corrected the comments about the ADS syntax.
Maël
Site Admin
Posts: 1455
Joined: 12 Mar 2005 14:15

Re: Done: HxD: Allow editing of NTFS file stream

Post by Maël »

The upcoming 1.7.6.4 will remove ADS support in the open dialog since it caused some bugs. You will still be able to open them using the command line, and probably later using some additional command specially made for ADS, which will be independent of the open dialog.
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