Glossary
Android Binary XML (ABX)
ABX is the compact binary XML format Android 12 and later use for system files such as packages.xml and settings; convert it with abx2xml or ccl_abx.
Android Binary XML (ABX) is a binary serialization of XML introduced in Android 12 to make system state files faster to read and write. Files keep their .xml names, but instead of text they start with the magic bytes ABX followed by a version byte, then a stream of typed tokens (start tag, attribute, text) with an interned string table and native encodings for integers, booleans, longs and byte arrays.
Many files an examiner reads daily switched to ABX on most Android 12+ builds: packages.xml, package-restrictions.xml, the settings stores, runtime-permissions.xml, appops.xml, recent tasks and others. Whether a given file is ABX can depend on the build and on whether the file was rewritten since an upgrade, so always check the first bytes before choosing a parser.
To read ABX, use abx2xml (shipped on Android 12+ devices, also xml2abx for the reverse) or an offline reader such as ccl_abx, then treat the output as ordinary XML. ALEAPP and commercial suites decode ABX automatically. A text editor showing mostly binary with readable tag names is the typical sign you are looking at ABX.