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             pefile - Portable Executable reader module
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INTRODUCTION

pefile will allow to access from any Python script all (or most) of the contents
of a given PE file.

The structures defined in the Windows header files will be accessible as the
PE instance attributes and will have the same names as defined there.
(The main structures will have the standard capitalized names and will be
attributes of the PE instance. Their members will be attributes.)

Other attributes and data, which require further processing but are very useful
will be available as lowercase attributes. Some of those are, the imported and
exported symbols and the sections, with direct access to their data (if any) and
convenient methods to retrieve data based on the address as if the file were
loaded, instead of needing to dig the offsets into the file.

WRITTING SUPPORT

Starting from pefile 1.2 it's possible to write back any changes done to the PE
file. One has to be careful with this functionality as it will not be very
inteligent reconstructing the PE file. That is, it will not handle displacing
structures if that would be needed because a new section has been added.
The rule of thumb is, if there's room for an additional header/structure to fit
then there'll be no problem and pefile will write it.
All other modifications, i.e. changing individual values in header/structure
members should work well.
One possible useful application of this could be to correct malformed headers
used by some malware in order to cause certain analysis tools to malfunction.

 
AVAILABILITY

Last versions are available at:

http://dkbza.org/pefile.html


INSTALLATION/USAGE

Just importing it should suffice. The module should be endianness independent and
it's known to work on OS X, Windows, and Linux.


TODO

There might be some obscure info which is not readily accessible, this may be
due to my ignorance or lazyness. Patches or suggestions are, as usual, welcomed.

Thinks known to be missing so far:

-Reading and processing the exceptions directory entry. (Architecture dependent
info)

BUGS

Given the amount of information embedded in the PE file format it is difficult
to test all the data retrieved thoroughly. I did my best trying and verifying
the accuracy of all the parsing. Most of the basic data has been tested by using 
this module, so no outrageously obvious problems should exist. Any feedback on
incosistent or faulty behaviour will be welcome.

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Copyright (c) 2005,2006 Ero Carrera <ero@dkbza.org>. All rights reserved. 
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