fq

Tool, language and decoders for working with binary data.

In most cases fq works the same way as jq but instead of reading JSON it reads binary data. The result is a JSON compatible structure where values have a bit range, can have symbolic values and know how to be presented in a useful ways.

It was initially developed to debug, inspect and query media files but has since been extended to handle a variety of binary formats.

You can pronounce the name as you wish, I pronounce jq /‘dʒei’kju:/ so I usually pronounce fq /‘ef’kju:/.

NOTE: fq is still early in development so some things are broken or do not make sense. That also means that there is a great opportunity to help out!

Goals

• Make binaries accessible, queryable and sliceable.
• Nested formats and bit-oriented decoding.
• Quick and comfortable CLI tool.
• Bits and bytes transformations.

Hopes

• Make it useful enough that people want to help improve it.
• Inspire people to create similar tools.

Supported formats

aac_frame, adts, adts_frame, apev2, ar, av1_ccr, av1_frame, av1_obu, avc_annexb, avc_au, avc_dcr, avc_nalu, avc_pps, avc_sei, avc_sps, bencode, bsd_loopback_frame, bson, bzip2, cbor, dns, dns_tcp, elf, ether8023_frame, exif, flac, flac_frame, flac_metadatablock, flac_metadatablocks, flac_picture, flac_streaminfo, gif, gzip, hevc_annexb, hevc_au, hevc_dcr, hevc_nalu, icc_profile, icmp, id3v1, id3v11, id3v2, ipv4_packet, jpeg, json, matroska, mp3, mp3_frame, mp4, mpeg_asc, mpeg_es, mpeg_pes, mpeg_pes_packet, mpeg_spu, mpeg_ts, msgpack, ogg, ogg_page, opus_packet, pcap, pcapng, png, protobuf, protobuf_widevine, pssh_playready, raw, sll2_packet, sll_packet, tar, tcp_segment, tiff, udp_datagram, vorbis_comment, vorbis_packet, vp8_frame, vp9_cfm, vp9_frame, vpx_ccr, wav, webp, xing, zip

For details see formats.md

Usage

Basic usage is fq . file.

For more details see usage.md

Install

Use one of the methods listed below or download release for your platform. Unarchive it and move the executable to PATH etc.

On macOS if don't install using a method below you might have to manually allow the binary to run. This can be done by trying to run the binary, ignore the warning and then go into security preference and allow it. Or you can run this command:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine fq && spctl --add fq

Homebrew

# install latest release
brew install wader/tap/fq

Arch Linux

fq can be installed from the community repository using pacman:

pacman -S fq

You can also build and install the development (VCS) package using an AUR helper:

paru -S fq-git

Nix

nix-shell -p fq

FreeBSD

Use the fq port.

Alpine

Currently in edge testing but should work fine in stable also.

apk add -X http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/testing fq

Build from source

Make sure you have go 1.17 or later installed.

To install directly from git repository do:

# build and install latest release
go install github.com/wader/fq@latest

# or build and install latest master
go install github.com/wader/fq@master

# copy binary to $PATH if needed
cp "$(go env GOPATH)/bin/fq" /usr/local/bin

To run and run tests from source directory:

# run all tests and build binary
make test fq
# it's also possible to use go run
go run fq.go

TODO and ideas

See TODO.md

Development

See dev.md

Thanks and related projects

This project would not have been possible without itchyny's jq implementation gojq. I also want to thank HexFiend for inspiration and ideas and stedolan for inventing the jq language.

Similar or related projects

• HexFiend
• binspector
• kaitai
• Wireshark (specially tshark -T json)
• MediaInfo (specially mediainfo --Output=JSON and mediainfo --Details=1)
• GNU poke
• ffmpeg/ffprobe
• hexdump