The biggest hurdle faced by prospective plug-in authors
Chapter 13: Advanced Static Analysis with IDA Pro
331
PART IV
is learning the IDA API. The plug-in API is far more complex than the API presented for
IDC scripting. Unfortunately, plug-in API function names do not match IDC API function
names; though generally if a function exists in IDC, you will be able to find a similar
function in the plug-in API. Reading the plug-in writer??™s guide along with the SDKsupplied
headers and the source code to existing plug-ins is really the only way to learn
how to write plug-ins.
Building IDA Plug-Ins
Plug-ins are essentially shared libraries. On the Windows platform, this equates to a
DLL. When building a plug-in, you must configure your build environment to build a
DLL and link to the required IDA libraries. The process is covered in detail in the plug-in
writer??™s guide and many examples exist to assist you. The following is a summary of configuration
settings that you must make:
1. Specify build options to build a shared library.
2. Set plug-in and architecture-specific defines __IDP__, and __NT__ or __LINUX__.
3. Add the appropriate SDK library directory to your library path. The SDK contains
a number of libXXX directories for use with various build environments.
Pages:
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594