Prebuilt Binaries

[Mythra]

Hey! Amazing job getting this project out, it looks really nice so far! And I really appreciate you getting all this work out. Don't want to underscore how cool, and awesome it is having this out at all by filing the first issue that is more of a question rather than an issue.

I was starting to take a look at the project, and was poking at other OS support, and noticed the inclusion of binary files (specifically those in: AC_e-Reader_Card_Creator/Decompression/External ).

Besides generally not being super great for git storage, also making it hard to port to more OS's (without checking in more random binary files), it is also really hard/impossible to verify these binaries. There's no way to see how those binaries were built -- how do we reproduce them and verify they are what they say they are and have no other hidden things inside them? In fact it seems one of the files references a file not located in the source tree!, and is an executable file but build artifacts seem to contain a .dll, and a .exe! Although, I'm sure you have no ill intentions and they are what they say they are, it also doesn't feel me with warm fuzzies inside, as I mentioned it also would make porting really hard to do. This brings me to a couple questions:

1. Would you happen to know where the aforementioned unincluded file is: nedclib/nedclib.h file is, and I presume the rest of nedclib library is?
2. Would you be okay with a pull-request removing these prebuilt libraries, in exchange for either build scripts that get built during CI (such as GitHub actions) -- for every OS, or just being ported to C# to work natively (keeping the licensing and credits to the original authors obviously)?
   • If so would you prefer either one?
   • If we stick with building this C code -- any particular c building code you prefer? CMake/Meson/Makefiles/Whatever as long as it works?
3. Would you be okay accepting pull requests for other operating system/screenreader support?

Thanks! 😄

[HunterRDev]

Hi! Thank you for taking the time to look through the tool!

The pre-built binaries (executables) and files included in /Decompression/External/ largely reference tools from the nedclib library as you noticed. This is indeed a far from ideal solution from a security and storage standpoint. The code was originally built by handling data with the source files, but several build errors arose when incorporating a few nedclib functions. After fiddling for a few hours, I settled on just using the pre-built executables and a rather archaic file pathing structure to get the initial version out. Again, far from ideal, but I wanted to get a release out following the announcement. Fixing this and converting the nedclib tools and headerfix into innate C# is currently on the to-do list.

To answer your questions:

1. The nedclib library is taken from CaitSith2 and Tim Schuerewegen's e-Reader development tools. It seems some files were cut out of the included source folder when I was converting to the pre-built version; I'll re-include them.
2. Preferably, my ideal solution is to convert these external source files to work natively with credit to the original authors. This is the current plan and workflow. Though, if it continues to prove challenging and give errors as it did for me, building the C code could also be a solution. I have the most experience with Makefiles, but anything works.
3. If you, or anyone else, would like to contribute and make pull requests to expand support or fix issues, then that is perfectly fine by me. For now, I'll review requests when I get a chance and look to fully incorporate permissions to trustworthy contributors to this project to assist.

Hopefully this answers your questions. I share the same concerns about using pre-built binaries, and including them was always just a temporary band-aid.

Thanks again for looking through it and bringing these points up!