CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cocoansdata
Bart Jacobs
Bart Jacobs

Reputation: 9082

Decode unknown NSData

I've come across a resource that I would like to use, but I'm not sure how to proceed. The resource is a plist and one of the keys holds an NSData object. However, I don't know what the NSData represents. Is there a way to figure out how I should decode the NSData object to be able to read its contents?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 382

Answers (1)

user23743
user23743

Reputation:

So I assume you can't ask the provider of the resource what the data is for? Try dumping the data out to a file using -writeToFile:atomically:. Then you can use the file command-line tool to see if it knows what format the file is in. Or you can use xxd to look at the bytes and see if you recognise the format. There's no foolproof way to go from 'arbitrary set of bytes' to 'understanding of the context of those bytes', you either need to recognise it or ask someone.

Upvotes: 4

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