What is sbox?

sbox is a small C++ library that hides text strings inside your compiled program at build time, before the program ever runs. Normally, if you store a string like a password or API key in your C++ source code, it ends up sitting in plain text inside the compiled binary file, where anyone can read it with basic tools. sbox solves this by encrypting strings using AES-128 during compilation itself, so the readable text never appears in the final binary. The library uses a C++ feature called constexpr, which lets certain computations happen at compile time rather than at runtime. The encryption runs as the compiler processes your code, not when your program executes. At runtime, the encrypted bytes are decrypted back into the original string only when your code actually needs them. Two simple macros handle this: ObfStr for a single string and _OBF for working through a collection of strings. The README describes this as solving a weakness in a common but naive approach to encoding multiple strings, where programs use a fixed delimiter character like a hash symbol between values. That approach is easy to spot and reverse. AES-128 produces high-entropy output with no predictable patterns or separators, making it much harder to extract strings by scanning the binary. The project is compact and focused. The README links to an examples folder showing both single-string and multi-string usage. The author reports the implementation running in 7 milliseconds when tested as part of a coding challenge. The README is brief and does not cover installation steps, build requirements, or license terms beyond crediting the author.