PyGhidra workflow questions

[sad-dev]

I have been experimenting writing GhidraScripts to run on PyGhidra and have the following questions:

1.) PyDev behaves worse in eclipse than on Vscode with pylance + (pip) ghidra-stubs. For example, on eclipse, mashing ctrl+click on getOffset in the snippet below does not jump to the pypredef (although I do get most of the autocompletes). Am I just doing it wrong?

2. Is there an established workflow for creating pypredef or pyi files from a plugin?

3. Can I configure an eclipse run configuration to launch Ghidra with pyghidra? Is there an equivalent on VSC?

[ryanmkurtz]

1. I develop PyGhidra in the latest Eclipse/PyDev and it works pretty well. I don't use ctrl+click. I usually just type and when I hit the . i get the autocomplete list. Putting your cursor on something and pressing F3 should also take you to the pypredef definition. In my experience when that does not work, I didn't do enough Python typing annotations for it to figure it out or i need to regenerate the pypredef because things have changed. Could just be that PyDev is inferior. It was annoying that I even had to add the pypredef support to it...it would be nice if it followed the type stub standards.

2. There is no establed workflow for making the pypredef or pyi. We have a gradle task that does it on our codebase: gradle createPythonTypeStubs in distribution.gradle. This relies on a Java "Doclet" to produce the documention. The doclet does not get included with a Ghidra release...it's just on the build side of things right now. Are you doing your stuff from a release, or the Ghidra git repo?

3. You can do this. If you have PyDev installed and you have the Ghidra repo set up for eclilpse development, you should see these run configs. If you are in a release using the GhidraDev eclipse plugin, you should see the options to launch as PyGhidra, and run configs should be getting created for that.

[sad-dev]

Are you doing your stuff from a release, or the Ghidra git repo?

I typically put all my code in a plugin created from GhidraDev (GhidraDev -> new Module project). This includes both Java code public MyFirstPlugin(PluginTool tool) and python3 scripts for PyGhidra. I was not able to get a launch configuration that has both pyghidra and my plugin.

[ryanmkurtz]

This is a bug that you've discovered. GhirdaDev is not passing the proper JVM arguments to Ghidra on launch. Can you please make a new ticket so you an track the progress of the fix?

As a workaround, you can force it to be passed by sticking this in your support/launch.properties file (whichever one you have GhidraDev pointed at):

VMARGS=-Dghidra.external.modules=/path/to/your/ModuleProjectFolder

[ryanmkurtz]

Actually i'll have a new GhidraDev available soon for download if you would like to test it, that would be better than the workaround i listed there.

[ryanmkurtz]

GhidraDev 5.0.1 has been released to the update site. Here are instructions for how to get it from there:

https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra/blob/master/GhidraBuild/EclipsePlugins/GhidraDev/GhidraDevPlugin/README.md#manual-installation-in-eclipse-online

[ryanmkurtz]

Can you please make a new ticket so you an track the progress of the fix?

No need for this anymore, thx.

[sad-dev]

I can confirm it works for me now, thanks!