diff --git a/examples/utility.c b/examples/utility.c
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..c4fb811fd4f52a0c0c53632148c5e35c90bb934b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/examples/utility.c
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+#include <stdio.h>
+#include <stdlib.h>
+#include <errno.h>
+
+void check(const char* phase, int err) {
+	if (err) {
+		printf("ERR %d in phase `%s`. Err was `%s`\nEXITING!\n",
+			err, phase, connector_error_peek());
+		exit(1);
+	}
+}
+
+// allocates a buffer!
+char * buffer_pdl(char * filename) {
+	FILE *f = fopen("forward.pdl", "rb");
+	if (f == NULL) {
+		printf("Opening pdl file returned errno %d!\n", errno);
+		exit(1);
+	}
+	fseek(f, 0, SEEK_END);
+	long fsize = ftell(f);
+	fseek(f, 0, SEEK_SET);
+	char *pdl = malloc(fsize + 1);
+	fread(pdl, 1, fsize, f);
+	fclose(f);
+	pdl[fsize] = 0;
+	return pdl;
+}
\ No newline at end of file