Editing raw packet data

Whenever Netdude encounters data that is not specifically interpreted by some protocol plugin, the data is displayed using a hex editor, in a tab titled "(raw)". This editor supports two modes of operation -- hex and ASCII. In hex mode, it works like usual hex editors. An image of an editing session is shown below:

By clicking into the editor field, the cursor is placed either over a hex digit or the corresponding ASCII display on the right. The actual cursor is blue, the corresponding indicator in the other display part in a bright gray [1].

But our editor is better than that. For normal text, editing using the hex editor is cumbersome. You can use ASCII mode in those situations -- here the editor behaves more like a normal text editor. You can literally type up packet content!

Editing raw data using the ASCII editor.

There's one point that needs to be addressed when editing arbitrary binary data using the ASCII characters: unprintable characters and the null character, which normally delimits character strings. These characters are displayed as follows: