Did you know that you can add your own cross-references to the listing? There are even several different methods for that:

• Open xrefs window and press Ins
• Write an IDC script
• Write a plugin

Adding xrefs is very useful if IDA missed some of them and the graph looks ugly. Another benefit is replicated comments.

See a demo below the cut. If some lines of the demo look greenish, it is not your monitor. I have a plugin which colorizes the listing for me. It is an experimental thing, I'll publish it later...

Posted by Ilfak Guilfanov at 08:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

We all know that call invokes a function and ret returns to the caller. Alas, nothing is certain in the binary world. The ret instruction is quite often used for short jumps within a function. Among many other improvements in IDA v5.1 there will be a special logic to recognize and mark such pseudo-returns. I was surprised to see this graph and post it here for your amusement:

Please note the underlined ret and be prepared for unusual cross-references in your scripts :)

Posted by Ilfak Guilfanov at 07:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)