The Beginner's Guide to IDAPython
The Beginner's Guide to IDAPython
About the Book
Hello!
This is a book about IDAPython.
I originally wrote it as a reference for myself - I wanted a place to go to where I could find examples of functions that I commonly use (and forget) in IDAPython. Since I started this bookI have used it many times as a quick reference to understand syntax or see an example of some code - if you follow my blog you may notice a few familiar faces – lots of scripts that I cover here are result of sophomoric experiments that I documented online.
Over the years I have received numerous emails asking what is the best guide for learning IDAPython. Usually I will point them to to Ero Carrera's Introduction to IDAPython or the example scripts in the IDAPython's public repo. They are excellent sources for learning but they don't cover some common issues that I have come across. I wanted to create a book that covers these issues.I feel this book will be of value for anyone learning IDAPython or wanting a quick reference for examples and snippets. Being an e-book it will not be a static document and I plan on updating it in the future on regular basis.
The above snippet is from the Introduction of the The Beginner's Guide to IDAPython. I wrote this book in my spare time. It has been rewritten to cover changes made with the release of IDA 7. The price of the ebook is free (move the slider to left) but has a suggested price of $24.99.
Updates
Version 1.0
- Published
Version 2.0
- Table of Contents and closing added
Version 3.0
- Grammar fixes provided by Russell V. and added an example of renaming operands.
Version 4.0
- Support for IDAPython 7.0
Version 4.1
- Bug fixes provided by Minh-Triet Pham Tran @MinhTrietPT
Version 5.0
- Converted format from Markdown to Microsoft Word.
- Yara chapter added
- Coloring chapter added
- Structure chapter added
- Enumerated Types chapter added
- What’s next chapter added
- Fixed bug found by @qmemcpy
- Added MakeFunction as requested by Minh-Triet Pham Tran
Version 6.0
- Support for IDAPython 7.4 and Python 3.
- Extracting Function Arguments chapter added
- Basic Blocks chapter added
- PyQt chapter added
- Unicorn Engine chapter added
Version 7.0
- Layout improvements, function updates and bug fixes.
- Rewrote basic blocks chapter
- Persistent storage chapter added
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Updates 2
Intended Audience & Disclaimer 3
Conventions 3
IDAPython Background 5
Old vs New 5
Python-x86_64 Issues 6
The Basics 7
Segments 9
Functions 10
Extracting Function Arguments 17
Instructions 18
Operands 22
Basic Blocks 27
Structures 30
Enumerated Types 35
Xrefs 38
Searching 44
Selecting Data 51
Comments & Renaming 52
Persistent Storage for IDBs 60
Coloring 65
Accessing Raw Data 67
Patching 69
Input and Output 71
PyQt 74
Batch File Generation 77
Executing Scripts 79
Yara 81
Unicorn Engine 87
What’s Next? 99
Closing 100
Appendix 101
PeFile 101
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