Question

This is a little bit of weird problem here.

Say I have a C++ code, running on a specific platform. The only purpose of this code is to run files containing binary, NATIVE to that platform.

Now – my question is – HOW would I get the data from these files (could even be by bits, like 1024 bits a cycle) to the memory of machine running my code so that this data would be in the execution part?

In other words, can I get the data to somewhere where I can point the instruction pointer?

If yes, how?

I don’t mind if I have to use assembler for this – just so it would work.

EDIT: Sorry, I wasn’t specific enough.

Basically – the file data I want to load is in no format like .exe, Mach-O executable or ELF. It is just raw binary data (with some custom headers which my code removes). This binary data is machine code, specific and suited for the processor running on the current machine.

Technically this means I want to go around normal OS executors and load the binary directly. I could interpret it but that would be around 3x slower at best.

I would not mind at all if I need to run the data in another child process – but again, I can not use normal process openers, because the data is not in any format that the OS could run automatically (again – like .exe, Mach-O, ELF).

Answer 1

You should just read file to memory, mark this memory as executable (it’s platform-specific, for example VirtualProtect() for Windows), and call it as function: ((void(*)())ptr)();

Of course code in file should be position-independent.