This is similar to my previously announced pereader, but goes further in
multiple directions.
https://github.com/wiladams/peettles
Whereas the pereader (https://github.com/wiladams/LJITPEReader) is focused on
only PE files, I wanted to start afresh and go after other things.
.lib
.pdb
.exe
.dll
.obj
They're all kinda related, and kinda different. For example, parsing a .obj
file standalone, particularly if it has debug info, is different than if it's
in an 'import library'. And, there are two flavors of .lib. One is as an
"import" library (adjunct to a .dll or .exe), or it's a primary archive of .obj
files.
Many of the .obj file parsers I've looked at do things at a fairly surface
level, like finding the name of a module, but not much else. I try to go as
deep as I can, like looking at symbols, and auxiliary symbols. There's a lot
more that could be done, particularly around debug info, so work in progress.
The .pdb files have been my latest adventure. These files contain a ton of
debug information, enough to easily reconstruct an appropriate 'cdef' for
LuaJIT ffi. There are two little utilities in the 'testy' directory.
pdb2lua.lua - Turns the meta data of a .pdb file into a lua table. Of course,
the 'parse_pdb.lua' does all the parsing, and the utility just does pretty
printing.
pdb2strm.lua - Turns the individual streams of the .pdb file into individual
files in a directory. This is great for those cases when you want to extract a
single stream to play with in isolation for whatever reason. Perhaps you want
to have a much simpler representation of specific information to use for a
debugging database.
obj2lua.lua - Turn standalone obj into a lua table. Same deal as the other
ones. Parsing is done, then pretty printing.
pecoff2lua.lua - Turn a pecoff file, typically a .dll or .exe into a lua table
(pretty printing).
I think this is a good set of toys to start playing with if you're interested
in such things. For my own part, I'm essentially writing the code I need to
performs tasks I have, adding in interesting bits as I need them. Next bits
for me will be expanding on the .pdb stuff, a discontiguous block stream, so I
don't have to write streams out to a file first.
In addition to being generally useful utilities, they serve as some clean
documentation of how these files actually work. I try, either through the
code, or comments within the same, to explain things along the way, and give
all the references I've used to stitch things together.
Enjoy, if it so pleases you.
-- William
