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Intended audience: IDAPython developers

Scope of this guide

IDA 7.4 comes with the possibility of using Python 3.

Using Python 3 means that some code, which used to work, might require porting:

  • print() becoming a function, not a statement
  • xrange becoming range
  • __builtin__ becoming builtins
  • strings being unicode and not sets of bytes
  • integer division uses // and not /
  • map() returning a map object, not a list
  • {}.iteritems() (and similar) are gone
  • some changes in the import mechanism

Those are all well-documented Python 3 specifics, are thoroughly documented, and Python even provides tools to help with the transition.

This guide is not about those, but about IDAPython-specific changes to the API, but many of those being “ripples” of those Python 3 changes.

The guide

Note: that all qualified names below use their originating IDAPython module’s name (e.g., ida_kernwin) instead of the ‘umbrella’ idaapi module.

ida_bytes.data_format_t.printf

The value parameter used to be a str, now is bytes

ida_bytes.get_bytes, ida_bytes.get_bytes_and_mask

Used to return a str, now returns bytes

ida_bytes.get_strlit_contents

Used to return a str, now returns bytes

ida_hexrays.mbl_array_t.serialize

Used to return a str, now returns bytes

ida_idp.IDP_Hooks.ev_assemble

Used to return a str, now must return bytes

ida_netnode.netnode.getblob

Used to return a str, now returns bytes

ida_registry.reg_read_binary

Used to return a str, now returns bytes

ida_typeinf.tinfo_t.serialize

Used to return str instances for the ‘type’ and ‘fields’ parts of the tuple, now those are bytes

ida_typeinf.get_numbered_type

Used to return str instances for the ‘type’ and ‘fields’ parts of the tuple, now those are bytes

ida_ua.insn_t.insnpref

Used to return a str, now returns an int

ida_ua.insn_t.segpref

Used to return a str, now returns an int

idautils._cpu.<large vector registers, such as xmm0, ymm0, ...>

Used to return a str, now returns bytes

idautils.Functions.next idautils.Functions.__next__

Required to turn the type into a proper iterator in Python 3