Trying to output everything inside an exe file - c++

Question

I'm trying to output the plaintext contents of this .exe file. It's got plaintext stuff in it like "Changing the code in this way will not affect the quality of the resulting optimized code." all the stuff microsoft puts into .exe files. When I run the following code I get the output of M Z E followed by a heart and a diamond. What am I doing wrong?
ifstream file;
char inputCharacter;
file.open("test.exe", ios::binary);
while ((inputCharacter = file.get()) != EOF)
{
cout << inputCharacter << "\n";
}
file.close();

Answer 1

I would use something like std::isprint to make sure the character is printable and not some weird control code before printing it.
Something like this:
#include <cctype>
#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
std::ifstream file("test.exe", std::ios::binary);
char c;
while(file.get(c)) // don't loop on EOF
{
if(std::isprint(c)) // check if is printable
std::cout << c;
}
}

Answer 2

You have opened the stream in binary, which is good for the intended purpose. However you print every binary data as it is: some of thes characters are not printable, giving weird output.
Potential solutions:
If you want to print the content of an exe, you'll get more non-printable chars than printable ones. So one approach could be to print the hex value instead:
while ( file.get(inputCharacter ) )
{
cout << setw(2) << setfill('0') << hex << (int)(inputCharacter&0xff) << "\n";
}
Or you could use the debugger approach of displaying the hex value, and then display the char if it's printable or '.' if not:
while (file.get(inputCharacter)) {
cout << setw(2) << setfill('0') << hex << (int)(inputCharacter&0xff)<<" ";
if (isprint(inputCharacter & 0xff))
cout << inputCharacter << "\n";
else cout << ".\n";
}
Well, for the sake of ergonomy, if the exe file contains any real exe, you'd better opt for displaying several chars on each line ;-)

Answer 3

Binary file is a collection of bytes. Byte has a range of values 0..255. Printable characters that can be safely "printed" form a much narrower range. Assuming most basic ASCII encoding
32..63
64..95
96..126
plus, maybe, some higher than 128, if your codepage has them
see ascii table.
Every character that falls out of that range may, at least:
print out as invisible
print out as some weird trash
be in fact a control character that will change settings of your terminal
Some terminals support "end of text" character and will simply stop printing any text afterwards. Maybe you hit that.
I'd say, if you are interested only in text, then print only that printables and ignore others. Or, if you want everything, then maybe write them out in hex form instead?

Answer 4

This worked:
ifstream file;
char inputCharacter;
string Result;
file.open("test.exe", ios::binary);
while (file.get(inputCharacter))
{
if ((inputCharacter > 31) && (inputCharacter < 127))
Result += inputCharacter;
}
cout << Result << endl;
cout << "These are the ascii characters in the exe file" << endl;
file.close();