Tool
Kaitai Struct
Turn documented binary layouts into reusable parsers for files and network packets. A .ksy specification can be inspected with visualizers and compiled to multiple languages, helping preserve reverse-engineered format knowledge in interoperable implementations.
- Targets
- Binary · Firmware · Protocol
- Category
- Binary analysis libraries
- Relationship
- Foundation tool
- Sources reviewed
Requirements & limits
- Provide a .ksy specification or adapt an existing format description; Kaitai generates parsers from that description rather than discovering unknown protocol semantics automatically.
- The stable 0.11 universal compiler runs on Linux, macOS and Windows with Java 8+; Java 21 LTS is recommended. Generated parsers also need the selected language's Kaitai runtime.
- Compiler and visualizer are GPL-3.0-or-later; runtimes have separate licenses, including MIT and Apache-2.0. Compiler licensing does not impose its license on input specifications or generated output.
About this entry
The description was reviewed against primary sources.
Primary sources
- README.md GitHub · kaitai-io/kaitai_struct · Revision 5ca6630
- README.md GitHub · kaitai-io/kaitai_struct_compiler · Revision fd25942
- https://kaitai.io/
- https://github.com/kaitai-io/kaitai_struct_compiler/releases/tag/0.11