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I have a file that holds manufacturing orders for a machine.
I would like to read the content of this file and edit it, but when I open it in a text editor i.e. Notepad++, I get a bunch of wierd charecters: 

xÚ¥—_HSQÀo«a)’êaAXŽâê×pD8R‰¬©s“i+ƒ´@¡$ -þl-ó/ÓíºIúPôàƒHˆP–%a&RÎÈn÷ü¹·;Ú;ç<ìòÝÃý}¿ó}‡{϶«rWg>˜›ãR‡)Çn0³Ûf³yÎW[5–šw½ÇRW{ñ’rO6¹ŽŸp¦ÙœcÏ.9yÀnýg )Ë—e90ejÕø£rC. f¦}3ËŒ˜hü”å1g[…ø±ú ÜJøz®‹˜YfÈ,4`ŽKÉ—ù“ÔË¿d„þlG3@=˜Ž´+hF¬¦£€«šm¿áØ ïÖµv‡ËpíÍ~™‡Aù šëÈÚ]ÿç™DŒÉFØ ïƒæsij  ¦y=-74Æ/t=ÕŠr\˜š»Âä‰Ý­¨žã΢ dz·à‡'fœ½­yâ½4qåPjácòÄŒeÊhñ“ý™ÙÎÕ÷5ôlñ=˜Õ{ú;ø=Û;4OêYä>Ìpxbæâ­'è"oëB×1gQ9“'¹]Ô³’Ô³ø!ÌózÞyŸõžÓIŽù*&OÌXPÕ"ŽWžpíOÌè‚Þ3Òr0{Ž†R=_?…/¼žÞ0,ê=/?£ûÓËîy“2Z<ij³[ËÁì™÷–ôžÎ’Ããa÷<Maêéí…¼ž}©žYýZ-˜=­”á¤}π＞3°¢÷œ$ïè‰3ìž«ƒÄs¿—xnŒÀ*¯gi$ÕómDËÁìùIeоû‡À¬?3°x¾"~ª§c˜öÝÇî颌°›x¾Fßb>Ï}QXÓ{öFi-êÙßóR”œe^Ñ÷ü‘¿g[Lë ŽwJZϘë¹3”³L©gH‚,^Ïe 2ôžWGøëÙ2‚Î øœL¾ÅqÈäõ,ýç\œË3¾þeྗ&`Ϻ<KÒf“’»ðù]í‰ãžU^wèþåÔÖy”H}ò•6ø6

It looks like the file is encoded.
Any idea how to find the encoding and make the file readable and editable?

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6
  • If it's a custom binary format, it could be anything at all. If you have no specification/documentation for what that file contains and how it encodes that information exactly, our guess is as good as yours. Commented Jun 22, 2016 at 10:27
  • Can you tell us what software is this from? What machine? Maybe the standard is open and well known, probably ready to use editors or at least libraries are available? Commented Jun 22, 2016 at 10:34
  • the file is used with scotsdale steel frame manufacturing mchine. Commented Jun 22, 2016 at 10:43
  • the machine is comupter controled. machine software accepts this file and control the machine ccording to the mnufacturing instructions in the file Commented Jun 22, 2016 at 10:46
  • the file has a .int extention, and its exported from a software called gcad4 Commented Jun 22, 2016 at 11:02

2 Answers 2

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1

It's binary and probably encoded so without knowledge of data structure you can't do much - just reverse engineering based on trying and checking what changed, operating with hex editor.

It isn't impossible, tho. If you can change the data the way you know (eg. change number of orders from 1 to 2) and export to file, you can compare binary values and find which byte holds that number. Of course if it is encrypted and you don't know the key... It's easier to find another way.

For further read, check this out - https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Reverse_Engineering/File_Formats

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Of course, before going on a reverse-engineering spree, OP should first try to find official information about the file format. Exploratory reverse engineering can be an enormous time sink...
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If you've got access to a Linux box why not use

hexdump -C <filename>

You will be able to get a much better insight into how the file is structured, than by using a text editor.

There are also many "hexdump" equivalent commands on Windows

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