Home/ Questions/Q 9119907
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-06-17T05:30:27+00:00

I need to read a binary format in Haskell. The format is fairly simple:

  • 0

I need to read a binary format in Haskell. The format is fairly simple: four octets indicating the length of the data, followed by the data. The four octets represent an integer in network byte-order.

How can I convert a ByteString of four bytes to an integer? I want a direct cast (in C, that would be *(int*)&data), not a lexicographical conversion. Also, how would I go about endianness? The serialized integer is in network byte-order, but the machine may use a different byte-order.

I tried Googling but that only yold results about lexicographical conversion.

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The binary package contains tools to get integer types of various sizes and endianness from ByteStrings.

    λ> :set -XOverloadedStrings
λ> import qualified Data.Binary.Get as B
λ> B.runGet B.getWord32be "\STX\SOH\SOH\SOH"
33620225
λ> B.runGet B.getWord32be "\STX\SOH\SOH\SOHtrailing characters are ignored"
33620225
λ> B.runGet B.getWord32be "\STX\SOH\SOH" -- remember to use `catch`:
*** Exception: Data.Binary.Get.runGet at position 0: not enough bytes
CallStack (from HasCallStack):
  error, called at libraries/binary/src/Data/Binary/Get.hs:351:5 in binary-0.8.5.1:Data.Binary.Get
    • 0