C++ Pass bytes from char* to a BYTE*
The definition of BYTE
is:
typedef unsigned char BYTE;
which is not the same as a const char
, so you'd need to convert it, but note that casting away const
from something declared const
to start with results in undefined behaviour and trying to actually change the data poses an even bigger risk.
BYTE* Bytes = reinterpret_cast<BYTE*>(const_cast<char*>(ByteString));
Edit: I just noticed that converting a const char*
to a BYTE*
was taken out of the question but I'll leave it here for now.
Copying the data (not as a zero terminated string) could be done like this:
const char ByteString[] = "\x3B\xC8\x74\x1B";
BYTE* Bytes = new BYTE[sizeof(ByteString)-1];
std::memcpy(Bytes, ByteString, sizeof(ByteString)-1);
// Use your Bytes
delete[] Bytes; // manual delete when you are done
Or better:
const char ByteString[] = "\x3B\xC8\x74\x1B";
std::basic_string<BYTE> Bytes( reinterpret_cast<const BYTE*>(ByteString), sizeof(ByteString)-1 );
// use Bytes
// Bytes.data() returns a BYTE*
// Bytes.size() returns the length.
But given the nature of what you are doing, you could probably skip these conversions and use an array of the correct type to start with:
BYTE Bytes[] = { 0xA1, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3B, 0xC8, 0x74, 0x1B };
or
std::basic_string<BYTE> Bytes({ 0xA1, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3B, 0xC8, 0x74, 0x1B });
These won't need any conversions when all you deal with is raw BYTE
data. Here's an example using ReadProcessMemory
and a basic_string
for a buffer and pattern.
using BYTEstr = std::basic_string<BYTE>; // just for convenience
BYTEstr Buffer(1024, 0); // 1024 BYTES initialized with 0
BYTEstr Pattern({ 0xA1, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3B, 0xC8, 0x74, 0x1B });
ReadProcessMemory(hProcess, lpBaseAddress, Buffer.data(), Buffer.size(), &lpNumberOfBytesRead);
BYTEstr::size_type pos = Buffer.find(Pattern);
if (pos == BYTEstr::npos) {
std::cout << "Pattern not found\n";
} else {
std::cout << "Pattern found at position " << pos << "\n";
}
To respect const, use
const BYTE *Bytes = reinterpret_cast<const BYTE*>(ByteString);
and vice versa:
const char *ByteString = reinterpret_cast<const char *>(Bytes);
If you want to make copy of the buffer so that you can modify it, use
len = LenOfChrStr;
BYTE *Bytes = new BYTE[len];
memcpy(Bytes, ByteStr, len);