Bytecode Tools

Bytecode tools are combination of multiple necessary modules to play with Python bytecode. Most of the bytecode related modules are version specific and they won't support other python versions.

Bytecode won't be same across versions, new opcodes will be added or opcodes will be removed or modified, so python standard library modules won't work with other version generated bytecodes.

Let's say marshal module, it's purpose is to serialize or deserialize code objects, they are version specific. Like wise dis module, there is a heavy difference in disassembling bytecode to wordcode AND opcode differences make this version incompatible.

Our goal is to make bytecode_tools work with any Cpython version, Aim is to build below tools.

Tool	Purpose	Status
unmarshal	deserialize the code obejcts.	Completed
pydis	Disassembler for any Cpython version.	completed
pycdecode	Decoder for bytecode chache files (pyc files)	Completed
hackdis	Hack the disassembled bytecode	WIP
decompiler	A decompiler for Cpython x.x	Planned

How to deal with bytecode_tools?

Install

1. Clone this repo and python setup.py install or use pip install .

2. Install directly from PyPi pip install bytecode-tools

Usage

pydis

pydis is a python disassembler, it can be a drop in replacement for cpython's Lib/dis.py.

Pydis supports all the cpython versions above 2.5, every verion above 2.5 supports other versions. This means, pydis decodes 2.6 bytes code in 3.6 and vice versa.

Why pydis?

Python's dis moduel is super helpful for looking inside code objects, but it won't support other python versions. If the code object is created through python 3.5 and try to disassemble with python3.6, it won't work.

Each python version gets changes to opcodes, there will be new ones added and few are deleted. Unless you recreate the code object with new python version, the same code object can't be interpreted with old versions.

Disassemble a statement.

>>> from bytecode_tools import pydis
>>> pydis.dis("a=1")
1           0 LOAD_CONST               0 (1)
            2 STORE_NAME               0 (a)
            4 LOAD_CONST               1 (None)
            6 RETURN_VALUE

Disassble a function object.

>>> def foo():
      print(123)
      a = 1
      b = 2
      c = a + b
      return c

>>> pydis.dis(foo)
  2           0 LOAD_GLOBAL              0 (print)
              2 LOAD_CONST               1 (123)
              4 CALL_FUNCTION            1
              6 POP_TOP

  3           8 LOAD_CONST               2 (1)
             10 STORE_FAST               0 (a)

  4          12 LOAD_CONST               3 (2)
             14 STORE_FAST               1 (b)

  5          16 LOAD_FAST                0 (a)
             18 LOAD_FAST                1 (b)
             20 BINARY_ADD
             22 STORE_FAST               2 (c)

  6          24 LOAD_FAST                2 (c)
             26 RETURN_VALUE

To get the all the bytecode instructions.

>>> pydis.instructions(foo.__code__)
[LOAD_GLOBAL, LOAD_CONST, CALL_FUNCTION, POP_TOP, LOAD_CONST, STORE_FAST, LOAD_CONST, STORE_FAST, LOAD_FAST, LOAD_FAST, BINARY_ADD, STORE_FAST, LOAD_FAST, RETURN_VALUE]

Like wise other dis module options are available with pydis.

pyc decoder?

what are pyc files?

pyc files are python bytecode cache files, they will be used in eval loop at the interpretation stage. Compilation phase output gets serialized into pyc file along with some meta data to identify the python version and the time it was created. pyc files are heavily version specific, this means pyc file generated from one version of python won't be intrepreted with other version.

The meta data which has been serialized into to pyc files are identifiers for invalidating the pyc file incase if the source file is newer or the interpreter version has changed. This is mailny because of the incompatibility of the bytecode across versions. New opcodes will be added or deleted from version to version.

Bytecode tools pycdecoder helps with deserializing bytecode object and parse the metadata with any version of cpython.

Let's say you've a python file test.py with the below statements.

a = 1
print(a)

If you do python -m test.py, based on the versioon that you use. You'll get a test.pyc or __pycahce__/test_cpython-37.pyc (From pyhton3 pyc files are cached in __pycahce__ dir).

I'm using python37 here, I've got the cache file under __pycahce__

>>> from bytecode_tools import pycdecode
>>> pycdecode.showpyc('<path_till_here>/__pycache__/test_pycdecoder.cpython-37.pyc')

Magic     :  3394
timestamp :  2019-05-23 02:28:58
Size      :  15
Bytecode  :
  1           0 LOAD_CONST               0 (1)
              2 STORE_NAME               0 (a)

  2           4 LOAD_NAME                1 (print)
              6 LOAD_NAME                0 (a)
              8 CALL_FUNCTION            1
             10 POP_TOP
             12 LOAD_CONST               1 (None)
             14 RETURN_VALUE