[HN Gopher] Reverse-Engineering Apple Dictionary
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       Reverse-Engineering Apple Dictionary
        
       Author : pcr910303
       Score  : 40 points
       Date   : 2021-09-12 21:57 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (fmentzer.github.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (fmentzer.github.io)
        
       | enragedcacti wrote:
       | For anyone else needing to tackle something like this, its
       | definitely worth checking out Binwalk [1]. It is meant for
       | extracting firmware but it works decently well on most files-in-
       | files type data formats.
       | 
       | [1] https://github.com/ReFirmLabs/binwalk
        
       | gilgoomesh wrote:
       | It seems highly likely (given that this is a dictionary and
       | requires fast lookups) that you're reverse engineering something
       | like CEVFS (i.e. a virtual file system for compressing a
       | database). Which is why the dictionary is broken into chunks...
       | these are the compressed pages of the database.
        
       | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
       | That's awesome!
       | 
       | But be aware (i.e. "beware") that Apple can pull the rug out of
       | unpublished APIs, without warning.
       | 
       | I have been caught out, by this, myself.
        
       | gfaure wrote:
       | I assume one reason Apple has made it more challenging to extract
       | the dictionary resources is in order to satisfy licensing
       | constraints with the dictionary authors. I wonder if they'd block
       | an app like this through the App Store submission process, if
       | submitted.
        
         | macintux wrote:
         | I'd definitely assume this would be a copyright problem if used
         | in an app.
        
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       (page generated 2021-09-12 23:00 UTC)