C++ Pass bytes from char* to a BYTE*

Question

I would like to know how to pass/COPY a sequence of bytes represented as a char* to a BYTE* in C++ in Windows.

Let's say I have this char* :

const char *ByteString = "\x3B\xC8\x74\x1B"  

How would I COPY each byte from this char* to a BYTE *Bytes and vice-versa ?

EDIT: Thanks alot for everyone's help !

Answer 1

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.

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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.

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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";
}

Answer 2

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);

Answer 3

Given a char const * array of characters, we can make a new buffer with readwrite BYTE s for the API to possibly edit:

char const *ByteString = "\x3B\xC8\x74\x1B";
auto len = std::strlen(ByteString) + 1;
auto ptr = std::make_unique<BYTE[]>(len);
std::memcpy(ptr.get(), ByteString, len);

If you need to surrender the ownership of the memory to the function:

Func(ptr.release());

But if you want to keep the ownership yourself:

Func(ptr.get());

Answer 4

In MSVC (I guess this is your compiler for WinAPI application) you can make the char type unsigned with /J option (more here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/build/reference/j-default-char-type-is-unsigned?view=vs-2017 ). If you do this, BYTE becomes the same as char and no conversion would be necessary.

Please note, this might have some other side effects in your application.