8 ms·

> The include_* macros are great for “packaging”. Being able to compile small assets directly into the binary and eschewing run time file loading is fantastic f

> The include_* macros are great for “packaging”. Being able to compile small assets directly into the binary and eschewing run time file loading is fantastic for a small game. For C/C++/etc devs looking for something similar, BFD objcopy supports an "-I binary". It will emit an object file with _binary_objfile_start, _binary_objfile_end and _binary_objfile_size symbols. But I have got to say that making it a language feature means that Rust is truly a batteries included language.

Pxtl 10y ago
Agreed. I code in C# and there's facility for bundling assets into the binary but they're handled at the project file level and not the C# file level, and this means the keys to access this binary content is not available as a compile-time constant. You're still just passing strings around and hoping they match. Having first-class language support for resource files looks fantastic.
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  I wonder how XNA's asset pipelines worked. I also wonder if you could "pack" a binary into an assembly by writing a tiny bit of IL around it.
  - voltagex_ 10y ago
    http://stackoverflow.com/a/28191247 http://stackoverflow.com/a/28191247
    - Pxtl 10y ago
      Yeah, that's the workflow I was mentioning, cooking the file into a resource by referencing it as resource in the csproj, but then it's keyed by a string of the file-path within the project file, which isn't nearly as nice as having it bound to a variable in C#.
- flukus 10y ago
  > and this means the keys to access this binary content is not available as a compile-time constant Isn't that exactly what resource files give you or am I confusing something? Anything you add in resource files have are accessible as a static variable.
  - Sean1708 10y ago
    It looks like you're right (for C# at least): https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7k989cfy(v=vs.90).aspx#Anchor_2 https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7k989cfy(v=vs.90).a...
sillysaurus3 10y ago
To embed binary assets into any language, write a program that emits the binary as a string containing hex codes. E.g. bytes [0, 12, 99] would become "\x00\x0C\x63". Almost every language has facilities to treat a string as a set of bytes, so this works basically everywhere. It's nice because you don't need any special language-level support for it.
- jamescostian 10y ago
  While I do agree that it is possible to do something like that, I think we can all agree that the following (available in Rust) is soooooo much nicer: let stuff = include_bytes!("my.file");
  - phkahler 10y ago
    Now I have to rewrite my arcade game emulator in rust just so I can use that to load rom images...
    - FreeFull 10y ago
      include_bytes! is for compile-time inclusion of files though, not for runtime.
      - phkahler 10y ago
        Yeah but when it only runs 15 games with a max size of 32K... But yeah it makes it non-distributable because it would then include the images.
    - jamescostian 10y ago
      Not only did you completely miss the point (a systems language has a very nice thing very well built-in - yay!), but you also built a strawman (as if praising a language means is the same as telling everyone to rewrite all code in that language) and then beat it up using a poor example (why package those images into the binary?). Congratulations! You just won the internet!
Asooka 10y ago
That has also been a feature of Windows for quite some time, you have your IIRC .exe icon and various string resources packaged in the .exe itself. It's pretty useful on the whole.
hawski 10y ago
There is also an option to use assembler or inline asm. I found quite a nice utility that uses inline asm [0]. It's widely portable and I think that I will use it instead of my naive asm/shell combo that doesn't work with mingw asm. The problem with objcopy outside of unconvenient usage and naming is that naive objcopy will result in your binary having executable stack [1]. You can change a symbol name, but that's also unconvenient. Check resulting binary with: $ readelf -lW the_binary | grep GNU_STACK GNU_STACK 0x000000 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 0x000000 0x000000 RWE 0x8 $ Notice: RWE instead RW. Also: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Hardened/GNU_stack_quickstart#How_to_fix_the_stack_.28in_practice.29 https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Hardened/GNU_stack_quickstart#H... [0] https://github.com/graphitemaster/incbin https://github.com/graphitemaster/incbin [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10816322#10818085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10816322#10818085 EDIT: My shell script - bin2o.sh: #!/bin/sh set -e filename="$1" name=$(echo "$1" | sed "s/[^A-Za-z0-9]/_/g") obj="$2" echo \ " .section .rodata .global ${name} .type ${name}, @object .global ${name}_size ${name}: .incbin \"${filename}\" 1: ${name}_size: .int 1b - ${name} .section .note.GNU-stack,\"\",%progbits " | gcc -x assembler -c - -o "$obj"

Pxtl 10y ago

Agreed. I code in C# and there's facility for bundling assets into the binary but they're handled at the project file level and not the C# file level, and this means the keys to access this binary content is not available as a compile-time constant. You're still just passing strings around and hoping they match. Having first-class language support for resource files looks fantastic.

voltagex_ 10y ago
I wonder how XNA's asset pipelines worked. I also wonder if you could "pack" a binary into an assembly by writing a tiny bit of IL around it.
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  http://stackoverflow.com/a/28191247 http://stackoverflow.com/a/28191247
  - Pxtl 10y ago
    Yeah, that's the workflow I was mentioning, cooking the file into a resource by referencing it as resource in the csproj, but then it's keyed by a string of the file-path within the project file, which isn't nearly as nice as having it bound to a variable in C#.
flukus 10y ago
> and this means the keys to access this binary content is not available as a compile-time constant Isn't that exactly what resource files give you or am I confusing something? Anything you add in resource files have are accessible as a static variable.
- Sean1708 10y ago
  It looks like you're right (for C# at least): https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7k989cfy(v=vs.90).aspx#Anchor_2 https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7k989cfy(v=vs.90).a...

sillysaurus3 10y ago

To embed binary assets into any language, write a program that emits the binary as a string containing hex codes. E.g. bytes [0, 12, 99] would become "\x00\x0C\x63". Almost every language has facilities to treat a string as a set of bytes, so this works basically everywhere. It's nice because you don't need any special language-level support for it.

jamescostian 10y ago
While I do agree that it is possible to do something like that, I think we can all agree that the following (available in Rust) is soooooo much nicer: let stuff = include_bytes!("my.file");
- phkahler 10y ago
  Now I have to rewrite my arcade game emulator in rust just so I can use that to load rom images...
  - FreeFull 10y ago
    include_bytes! is for compile-time inclusion of files though, not for runtime.
    - phkahler 10y ago
      Yeah but when it only runs 15 games with a max size of 32K... But yeah it makes it non-distributable because it would then include the images.
  - jamescostian 10y ago
    Not only did you completely miss the point (a systems language has a very nice thing very well built-in - yay!), but you also built a strawman (as if praising a language means is the same as telling everyone to rewrite all code in that language) and then beat it up using a poor example (why package those images into the binary?). Congratulations! You just won the internet!

Asooka 10y ago

That has also been a feature of Windows for quite some time, you have your IIRC .exe icon and various string resources packaged in the .exe itself. It's pretty useful on the whole.

hawski 10y ago

There is also an option to use assembler or inline asm. I found quite a nice utility that uses inline asm [0]. It's widely portable and I think that I will use it instead of my naive asm/shell combo that doesn't work with mingw asm. The problem with objcopy outside of unconvenient usage and naming is that naive objcopy will result in your binary having executable stack [1]. You can change a symbol name, but that's also unconvenient. Check resulting binary with: $ readelf -lW the_binary | grep GNU_STACK GNU_STACK 0x000000 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 0x000000 0x000000 RWE 0x8 $ Notice: RWE instead RW. Also: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Hardened/GNU_stack_quickstart#How_to_fix_the_stack_.28in_practice.29 https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Hardened/GNU_stack_quickstart#H... [0] https://github.com/graphitemaster/incbin https://github.com/graphitemaster/incbin [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10816322#10818085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10816322#10818085 EDIT: My shell script - bin2o.sh: #!/bin/sh set -e filename="$1" name=$(echo "$1" | sed "s/[^A-Za-z0-9]/_/g") obj="$2" echo \ " .section .rodata .global ${name} .type ${name}, @object .global ${name}_size ${name}: .incbin \"${filename}\" 1: ${name}_size: .int 1b - ${name} .section .note.GNU-stack,\"\",%progbits " | gcc -x assembler -c - -o "$obj"